Turnabout
by LostandAlone22
Summary: In the episode Faith, what if it was Sam that got sick?
1. Chapter 1

Standard Disclaimers Apply

This is my first "Supernatural" fiction that I have even attempted to write. Also, I am very fond of the weak/strong theme with all characters, and so naturally, Sammy being younger is weak. Hope you enjoy.

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Tears threatened to pour out of Dean's eyes as he watched the stretcher with his baby brother on it be rushed down the hall. How many times had he shrugged off what he knew now to be dangerous symptoms in favor of denying that they even existed? How many times had he had the chance to save the only remaining member of his tiny family and passed it on by?

Maybe he had just passed it on as a reaction to Jessica's death, but he should have noticed earlier. It doesn't take that much of a toll on someone who's all right otherwise. Sammy had always been his responsibility, and now his negligence had led the kid this close to death's door. For a few desperate moments, he regretted the distance that he had allowed to separate them after the whole incident at Roosevelt Asylum. If he had stayed as attentive to Sam as when he first went to get him from Stanford, would the boy be this sick? Would he have had the chance to become this sick if he watched him better or would it still have slipped under the radar?

"Dean?" Sam's desperate cry filled the air as he struggled to sit up. "Dean? What happened?"

Dean's heart broke into a million tiny pieces. His voice sounded so small, so unsure, but mostly so young. He quickly broke from his self-deprecating thoughts and focused on his brother. Grabbing his hand within his own, he tried to sooth him. "It'll be all right. You'll be fine. You're just a little sick right now, but everything will be just fine. I promise..."

His voice trailed off. Was this a fair promise? He had found a way to keep his promises to Sammy, but a little voice in the back of his head said that this was the one he would not be able to keep.

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Review if you would like to. Please be honest when reviewing, though.Please don't flame me personally(it has been done before), but please feel free to leave a piece of constructive criticism if you feel it needs it. Thanks.


	2. Emergency Room Observations

Disclaimer on previous chapter.

Here's the next installment. Thanks to everyone who reviewed. This delves into Dean's feelings, and chick-flick moments abound. I realize it might be out of character, and I'm sorry if anyone is offended. I have a real flare for the dramatics. Enjoy!

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All of a sudden, there was a flurry or activity. Dean broke out of the negative mind set that he had been allowing to overcome him and looked at the scene unfolding before him. His brother's vital signs were slipping. Panic overtook him for a brief moment as he watched the doctor's try to save his baby brother. He stepped back, dazed, until he hit the wall behind him, listening to the doctors call out vital stats.

"BP 80/30 and falling. Resp. down to 80. We gotta get this kid stabilized!" The one woman doctor yelled over the flurry of activity. He knew he should have done something the moment Sam started to get sick, knew it more than anything now, as he watched them try to save him.

'Please God, please, if you save him, I'll do anything. I'll go to church, and won't think any bad thoughts...for a while. Just please don't let me lose him.' He thought in his head, as the tears that had been threatening to fall made their way down his face. Just as suddenly as the activity had begun, it ended. Dean didn't know what was going on, but he noticed that they had his brother's vitals back up. He would be okay for now. 'Okay, God, what I said about the church and the bad thoughts...You know we were still in negotiations, right? Right?'

Sam lay on the hospital bed, hooked up to all kinds of machines that Dean didn't know, looking so lost. He did notice that the hose running under his nose was oxygen, though, and that thought alone sobered him up. It had deteriorated so bad that his Sammy needed to be helped by oxygen.

"Son, you need to wait out in the waiting room." The doctor tried to argue.

"No, I need to wait right here with him," He started, beginning to exude the belligerence that he had once, so long ago, told Sam was his thing.

The doctor sighed, knowing from Dean's stance that he was in a losing battle, and it would be best to just let things go.

"Doctor, what's wrong with him?" Dean asked, hoping that it was something simple that could be diagnosed just by looking at him. It had to be, right?

"We don't know yet. Look, we're going to admit him, run some tests, and get his medical records. I'll tell you more when I know more." The man said, before leaving the room to go start the admitting process.

Dean hated this, the not-knowing. He liked to be Superman in his brother's eyes. How many times had he saved him? Enough to be considered a super-hero? Obviously not, because he wasn't able to stop this. He walked back over to his brother, standing beside him and laying one hand on his feverish forehead. He looked over Sam's body, noticing the many bruises. There were the obvious ones around his neck from the extension cord in their old house, and the bruises that he had on the side of his face from Dean's own blows to him when they were at the Asylum, but there also were ones that he could not explain. There was the bruises that had occurred when the shape shifter had beaten him, bruises that should have disappeared a long time ago, and ones that he couldn't identify where they came from. Little red marks also scoured his skin, so small that the normal person would never have known them, but he was looking. In retrospect, it all looked ominous, like some demon waiting to steal Sam away from him.

Sam had been really tired lately, always complaining that they needed a rest. The nightmares had gone, and now he slept almost too much. 'Maybe if I had let him sleep more, this wouldn't be happening,' Dean rebuked himself, still trying to convince himself that it was something simple like exhaustion. Not to mention that he always seemed to have the sniffles.

Tonight had been bad, though, really bad. Sam told Dean that he had a headache before they headed out to get the werewolf. By the time they reached the woods where the thing would have been, Sam said that his headache was so bad that he could barely stand. It was blinding him. Dean regretted the comments he made, asking him if it was something to do with the Shining and bringing up that the little kid in the movie had seizures. Sam had ignored him, and kept on pushing forward. They hadn't yet found the thing when Sam looked back at him, tilted his head in confusion, and crumpled to the ground. Dean had picked up his boney body and ran with him back to the car. Sam had regained consciousness in the car, but Dean wouldn't let him get up.

Now, looking down at Sammy, he felt a rush of feelings that he had never learned how to name come over him. What was wrong with him? Stepping out to the hallway, he left his sleeping brother to go call their dad. He needed to be here, to let Sammy know he was there and that he cared. Their dad had always been there when either of them got sick.

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Hope you enjoyed. If you have any constructive criticism, please feel free to tell me. There will probably be another chapter tomorrow or the next day.

Happy hunting!


	3. The Boys Talk

Thanks to everyone for the reviews. I'm sorry the story is a little slow moving, but I'm also big on details. Hope you enjoy the story.

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Dean stalked out from the hospital, intent only on finding a quiet place to call their dad. He couldn't go back to the Impala; just looking over to Sam's seat would make him see his brother unconscious in it. He couldn't do that, not now while it was so fresh.

Finding a small, but private area not far from the hospital, Dean dialed their father's number. His anger started to swell after the third ring. He had left the hospital, his sick brother, to call the man, and he wasn't even answering. Not for the first time, Dean wished they didn't have that stupid rule about cell phones in hospitals. He could have called and not left Sammy's side. Finally, it hit the voicemail, and Dean resigned to the fact that he was on his own.

"Dad, you gotta come to Wisconsin. Sam...he's really sick. I don't know what's wrong with him yet, but dad, it's really bad. Please, I need your help. Just come, okay?" His voice had been fighting the tears, desperate not to let on just how scared he really was. He needed to be the strong one, to step up and take care of his baby brother, no matter if their dad showed or not. He trudged through the snow, back to the building that housed Sam, and thought about how he needed to get a better coat for him. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe there was all this drama and he would just have an infection from the cold.

As he neared the room where his brother was, he heard a weak voice ask, "Where's my brother? Where's Dean?" He quickened his steps so that he could be there, to reassure him. Sliding around the curtain to the room, Dean flashed Sam one of his trademark smiles and Sam seemed to relax on the bed.

"I thought you left me." He told his big brother. His eyes spoke volumes of how scared he had been of going through this on his own.

"What? You think you can rid of me that easily?" Dean said, trying to lighten the mood and bring a smile to his face. He looked so weak, so broken, and it was hard for Dean to maintain the light facade.

"I was kinda hoping." Sam teased back, trying to show his brother that he was still in the game, just a little sidelined right at the moment. He started panting for a second, short on breath, and Dean looked around for one of those water things. Finding one, he brought it to his brother.

"Drink slowly," He cautioned, for one moment feeling like he was dealing with little Sammy. When Sam would get sick as a child, he would take care of him. Their dad had been there, of course, but Dean had been the one to care for him. That was the way it always had been, and always would be. After Sam was done with the drink, Dean leaned him back. "Just rest for a while, Sammy. The doctor said that you would be admitted, so just rest." He felt Sam's forehead briefly before moving away to sit in a nearby chair. Sammy was still warm, feverish, and Dean wondered how much of this he would remember.

"Did they tell you what was wrong, yet?" Sam asked him and Dean could have sworn he heard an edge there. Maybe he was just imagining things.

"You're accepting this whole being sick thing too easily, Sam. You know what this is?" He felt bad accusing him of things, but it had to be done.

Sam shook his head and looked off to a far wall, "My guess is as good as yours."

Dean would have pursued it a little harder, but a short but plump young woman who was clearly a nurse came into the room. She had a warm smile and Dean filed her away as someone he would need to come back and talk to. Maybe a few sympathy points...

"Hi, I'm Candy. Mr. Winchester, we have a room for you. I'm gonna take you up there. Don't worry about a thing." She told Sam and gave Dean an even brighter smile.

Dean moved out of the way and looked at the clock above his head. It was now one in the morning. They had been there for two hours. And the record time for admitting someone to the hospital goes to...

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Hope you enjoyed. As always, if you have any praise or constructive criticism (and I do want that if you have it; it's any writers best pal) then please feel free to review.


	4. Unfortunate News

Thank you guys for reviewing.

Okay, here's the next installment. Hope you enjoy.

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Once Nurse Candy had settled Sam into the bed upstairs, the two brothers sat in comfortable silence for a while. Dean knew that Sam was awake, but didn't want to speak in fear that he could be going to sleep.

Sam knew that these were the last few hours of peace that he would be able to have with Dean. He sat there holding his brother's hand, out of a need to be close, even if it was short-lived. He had known what was going on for over a year, and hadn't said anything, hadn't found it necessary. Dean would know now, and he was going to be pissed. He might even leave Sam to deal with this all by himself. Looking at his brother, he felt like crying. How had he let this happen? After just sitting there for a while, holding onto his brother's hand, he drifted off to sleep.

Dean watched his brother throughout the night, just sitting there in a hard plastic hospital chair, holding the hand that Sam had grasped earlier. It pained him to know that his brother was so frightened that he would want to hold his hand and so left it there. Under normal circumstances, he would have snorted and made some Samantha crack, but now, in the dead of the night, it didn't feel right.

Sometime during the night, Dean had fallen asleep in his chair, and now, he awoke to the sound of a nurse's voice over the speaker. There was a huge knot in the back of his neck from the position that he had slept and he checked on Sam. His baby brother was so still, but when Dean grabbed the hand back, Sam reflexively squeezed back. "Just checking that you're all right, man."

The doctor, a tall man with white hair, came into the room where they sat. "Hello, my name is Dr. Lambert. I assume that you're Dean Winchester." He said, looking at the chart. _'Yeah, it would have been a lot more impressive if you could have done that without looking, doc.'_ "How has Samuel been overnight?"

"His name's Sam. He's holding his own. Had a little scare down in the ER, but he's okay." Dean said, followed closely just under his breath. "He's always okay."

"We have you listed as his next of kin, and he has verified that we can give you information. Would you care to step out in the hall so we can talk and let him sleep?"

Dean nodded and quickly abandoned the chair, following the older doctor. They walked down the hallway to what looked like a commons' area. It was empty, but it still made Dean a little paranoid. The look the doctor had on his face told Dean that this could not be good.

The doctor looked straight at Dean and spoke. "It's no use being indirect with someone who has been less than honest with me from the start. How long have you known about your brother's Leukemia?"

Time stood still for Dean and he felt as though he had been sucker punched hard. How long had he known what? He could hear himself talking, but couldn't feel it. "Less than a minute..."

The doctor sighed, realizing that he had made a huge mistake. He had told a family member who didn't know the extent of his patient's illness point blank and gruffly. "I'm sorry, Mr. Winchester."

"You can call me Dean. How...how long has he known?" Dean was dumbfounded. The news had managed to knock down some walls that he usually kept up and he felt lost.

"Your brother was diagnosed over a year ago, last August, with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia. It's usually a childhood disease, but not uncommon in adults."

Dean snickered a little to himself. To him, Sammy was a child, and always will be. "What are his chances?"

"If we start treatment right now, he has an eighty percent chance of survival. The disease has had a while to progress, so we're looking at a very high risk case, because of the length of time that he has waited to seek treatment. As a matter of fact, I'm surprised that you haven't seen any signs of this before now." The doctor explained. It was best in most cases to keep the family informed.

Dean looked at him, anguished that he might have been able to help Sam. "What was I looking for?"

"Him being tired all the time, tiring easily, sleeping a lot, paleness, weakness, weight loss, loss of appetite, shortness of breath, complaints that his bones hurt. He may have bruises that can't be explained because the impact was less than what would have caused ahealthy person to bruise. Older bruises may have a hard time healing. There are red marks under his skin. I saw them last night, and that was why I bothered to look at his medical history. He could have nosebleeds. At this stage, he could have headaches and vomiting. Does any of this sound familiar?"

Dean leaned forward in his seat, grasping his head in his hands, trying to absorb all the things the doctor was telling him. How much had he let slip by under the radar? Memories were coming back to him. At the Asylum, Sam's nose had bled. None of the other people had reported nosebleeds. Not even the cop's nose had bled. Why hadn't he noticed it? At the hotel, before they went back to Lawrence, when Sam had walked in front of his face, he noticed that Sam was losing weight. Why hadn't that woman, Missouri, noticed this? She could have done something, damnit! She could have saved them from this moment right here. The other stuff, he was noticing that stuff last night as they sat in the emergency room. He knew Sam was hiding something from him! He looked back at the doctor who was waiting for an answer. "Yeah, yeah it does. What can we do?"

"There are some treatments we can try. First would be chemotherapy. Again, at this point, there's not many options that we do have. As soon as he agrees, we can get him started on that. Do you have any questions, Dean?" The doctor had leaned in to try to comfort him. _'Yeah, how can I stop this from ever having happened in the first place? How do I turn back time? Any answer to those questions, doc?_'

"No, I'm gonna... go call my dad. He needs to come down here." Dean said, as way of excusing himself out of the situation. He just needed to make this go away.

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Okay, sorry that what the doctor was saying was kind of clipped. I didn't know how else to put the information that I wanted there in there. About the nurse's voice in the speaker: Each room has a TV and there's a TV/call nurse speaker on the bed. Sometimes nurses will call each other by means of this speaker.

GuestTypePerson: I am from Northern IL. As I wrote this, I looked out the window and saw the snow (melting thought it is) and I had heard Wisconsin has been getting worse so ;)

Hoped you enjoyed this chapter. Another should be posted soon. Have a wonderful day.

Happy hunting!


	5. Talking About It

Thanks for the reviews that you have given so far. I'm just overwhelmed by how much of a reception I have gotten for this story. Keep reading. Hope you enjoy this chapter. It's a bit out of Sam character, but it is what it is.

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Dean walked back down to the room where his brother lay, and looked in on him for a couple of minutes. For one split second, Dean felt angry that Sam had kept this from him. Didn't they already have this conversation about keeping secrets? He reigned it in, though. Sam needed him to be strong, and he couldn't be angry at him. He knew **now**. They could deal with things as a team **now**. He went over to Sam and pulled the blanket up a little more. His baby brother was shivering as if he were cold, and he probably needed another blanket, but Dean couldn't go get one right now. He needed to make a phone call to their father, make the old man come there now. Sam wasn't in the best of shape, and he could be dying. Dad needed to be there. He brushed the hair out of Sammy's face and softly put his hand on his brother's forehead. The fever was still there, although his forehead did feel a whole lot cooler. The drugs that they had given him were working. "I'll be right back, Sammy." He whispered before leaving the room.

All the way down on the elevator, he thought about how he would phrase this to their dad. He hoped the man answered this time, but he doubted he would. When he stepped out of the building, he was hit with the brightness of the sun against the snow. It was wrong. What right did it have to be so damn sunny when his brother was feeling so bad?

Breaking out of his mood, he went back to the place where he had last made his phone call. He needed his dad to pick up the phone more than anything...almost anything. Sammy up to full par would be nice, too.

Dialing the numbers, he once again waited as it rang. When it hit the voicemail, his anger flared up. His dad had to have gotten the voicemail already, and he couldn't even pick up. "Look, dad, it's me again. I just got done talking to the doctor. He said that Sam has Leukemia, Cancer! He said that it's had a while to progress. You need to get down here. Sam's really sick and he needs you. Hell, I need you. I can't go through this with him alone. Please, just come, okay? We're in Milwaukee. It's the St. Joseph Medical Center. I have to go back to Sam, but just come, okay?" He said gruffly to his father and closed the phone with a snap. He broke into a light jog to try to get back in with his brother and out of this cold.

Entering the building, he once again thought about the whole coat thing. Brr, it was cold out there. Why would someone intentionally settle down to an apple-pie kinda life in this place?

Walking back into the room where his brother lay, still sleeping, Dean decided how he was going to handle things with him. He sat down in the chair that he had abandoned this morning, and took his brother's hand in his. Leaning in, quiet enough not to draw the nurses but loud enough to get his brother's attention, he yelled "Wake up!"

Sam was immediately awake, eyes open as far as they would go and looking at his brother bewilderedly. "What if I was someone or some_thing_ else? You'd be dead now." Dean pointed out.

Sam shook his head. "No, Dean, I know it's you even in my sleep. I trust you."

Dean smiled and nodded his head; those were the words he had been waiting for. "Speaking of trust, what's with the lying to me about what was going on? I was concerned last night, not knowing what was going on, but you...you knew all along. Hell, you knew since the moment I picked you up from Stanford." He had stood up by now, and was trying to look angry.

"I'm sorry, Dean." Sam said, sounded pitiful even to himself. This was it. This was the moment where Dean decided that he was going to leave and let him deal with this on his own. He felt the anxiety coming, knew he wouldn't be able to hide it for much longer.

"I'm sorry! Am I just supposed to forgive you? Sam, you knew you had this for over a year, let it lay there and get worse, as you did nothing. Why?" Dean already forgave his brother; he didn't understand, but he forgave. He just needed to get Sam to talk to him.

"Dean, you don't understand. I found out and the first thing on my mind was how to keep it from you and Dad and even Jess. I couldn't deal with it, and I didn't want the people I love to be afraid or to have to see me sick. I was-am- afraid. I don't want to deal with that fear or with this, and so yes, I hid it. I'm sorry." He looked down at his hands. Dean sighed and sat back down, drawing the chair closer to the bed. He didn't like it, but he knew where his brother was coming from. Their dad had instilled it in them to kill their emotions, and this was where it ended up.

"I don't like it, but I forgive you." He told Sam to make him feel better.

Sam tilted his head and looked at Dean. "You do?" He had been expecting to be left on his own, after all. He knew he had lied by omission, and was ready to face things.

"Well, yeah, that's what I do." Dean said, flashing his brother a big smile.

"Let's see what's on TV." Sam said, trying to break out of the emotional moment.

"Ooh, maybe we can find Oprah." Dean said, and then shrugged. They would be fine. They would work things out. If it weren't for all the machines surrounding Sam and how weak he looked, Dean could almost forget the situation they were in.

After a while, Sam's eyes were once again closed. He looked so broken, Dean just wished that their dad would come. Together, they could beat this thing, make everything okay.

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Hope you liked it.

Anna: Oops! Sorry about the mistake in "Asylum." I guess I missed the fact that his nose was bleeding.


	6. When John Came

Thank you for all of the reviews that I have gotten. I hope you like this next chapter.

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John Winchester came into the room where his two boys sat, almost silently. He knew that by spending so long away from his boys that he had forfeited precious time. He hoped that he could change that now, that he could make a difference now. He and Dean could nurse the youngest Winchester back to health and he would make it up to both of them.

"Dean," He whispered to get the older boy's attention without waking Sammy. Little Sammy was looking so sickly, so small and he just couldn't bare the idea of waking him now. Dean looked around at his dad, and it was clear that he hadn't gotten much sleep. Too long hours sitting by his precious baby brother had left him haggard looking, deep shadows forming under his eyes.

"Dad," He said rising to his feet. He didn't look angry, as he should have been, merely resigned. "Sammy would have a fit if he knew you were here. We've been trying to get in touch with you for the last few months, and nothing. I..." Dean shook his head and chuckled.

"I was trying to find out the truth. It's been far too long that I have been searching for the thing that killed your mother. I just...needed to find it, to give you boys some hope. I'm here now." He was standing his ground, unwilling to back down from why he was here.

"I know. I just have really needed you. Thanks for listening to your messages this time." He looked back at Sam, laying in the bed. The sound of the heart monitor attached to his chest had drawn his attention back in that direction. Right now, everything was fine.

For the first time, John Winchester took in the sight of all the machines around his son's broken body. There were so many, all had their function. Dean had told him how bad it was in the message, but he had no idea until he looked. The sheer amount of monitors and equipment helping him to stay alive broke his heart. There wasn't a thing he could do to make this better. Anger and helplessness almost drove him back out the door. He had never done very well with those emotions and right now was no exception. Dean had said that it had a while to progress, and that Sammy had known, that it was already documented in his medical file. How could he just ignore it like that? Had he failed so badly, teaching the boys to fight every single monster out there, but not emphasizing how important it was to take care of yourself?

"Has the doctor been in here to see him?" He asked, breaking from his thoughts to look at his oldest. Maybe there had been a glimmer of hope since they had spoke, the situation wasn't as grim of a picture as it had been painted.

"Not since we last spoke. They said there's always someone who will be able to come in case of an emergency, but no Dad, nothing. Sammy told me he knew, told me why he didn't tell anyone." Dean was trying to maintain his composure, to give a visage of control, but was failing as tears silently started coming from his eyes.

"And?" John asked. He didn't want to rush Dean, but it needed to be done.

Dean rocked back on his ankle and looked at his dad. "He was scared. He knew what was happening, but he was scared. And he didn't want anybody to know because he didn't want to hurt them." He got a forelorn look on his face as he checked back on Sam.

"Did the doctor say anything about what we need to do?" John was ready to take charge, and the Sammy he last saw was an underage Sammy who would be forced to listen and obey what he was told.

"They're waiting for him to tell them to start chemotherapy. I don't that there's anything we can do." Dean said, letting his dad know that Sam was passed the point where he could be told what do regarding his own health.

John moved around to the other side of the bed as Dean and sat down with a sigh. Together, they sat, each one holding onto Sammy, and waited for the youngest member of their tribe to awaken.

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Hope everyone enjoyed this story!

Whimseyrhodes: Thank you for pointing out how much I repeat things. It's a flaw. I don't even realize that I'm doing it sometimes. I just get an image in my head and go with it. It really helps.

There will be an update very soon. Not tonight soon, but soon.

Happy hunting!


	7. FatherSon Talk

Wow, I've never had this many reviews before. Thank you all so much.

This installment is a little bit longer, and I hope you like it.

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Sam woke late into the night, with a bad headache. Before even opening his eyes, he called for Dean. He didn't know how he knew, but there was something that told him Dean was nearby.

"Son, open your eyes." John's voice alerted him, and his eyes sprung open quickly. He rubbed them to make sure that he was seeing right, and then tilted his head in confusion.

"Where's Dean at?" He asked this, looking around the room. He didn't care that his father was here in the room. The man had abandoned them for so long. Dean had called him so many times, and the only thing he left them were coordinates. Dean was the one who had sat with him for this long, stayed by his side since Jessica's death. Their dad probably had no clue.

"I told Dean to go to the cafeteria. He hasn't eaten for a while, and if something were to attack you, he wouldn't be able to kill it." John said in a matter-of-fact voice. He sounded just as clipped as Sam had always remembered him, and he wondered once again why Dean had left him with him.

"Can you go get him?" He asked.

"Why don't we sit for a while? We can talk." John said. He cared about his baby boy, and he reminded himself that he needed to treat Sammy differently than he treated Dean.

"Fine," Sam said, surrendering himself to the fact that he was too weak to fight his old man. He may as well just get this over with.

"You knew you had this?" John asked him in a calm, controlled voice. Sam knew from experience that this was the voice that had been used whenever his dad was mad at him.

"Yes." It was better to keep it simple and to the point. The less he gave his dad to work with, the less he would yell.

"You know that this could have been avoided if you had dealt with it sooner. I thought I had taught you that much." John said, that condescending tone in his voice. Sam averted his eyes. He knew his dad would be angry. This was his choice and he had kept it silent for a good reason. Why couldn't his dad just accept that?

"I had my reasons for keeping it to myself." He sighed. It would be so much easier to just give in. His aching head told him to, but he wouldn't just give in like that.

"Yeah, I heard. I don't think those were good reasons." John said gruffly, and once again Sam felt the sting of his words.

"Look, it was what I thought was best. I'm twenty-two, dad. I can make up my own decisions." God, his head was spinning. He wished they could just let it drop. There was some part of him that just wanted his dad to give him a hug and tell him that everything would work out, but that wasn't his dad. He took a breath, and prepared himself for surrender. "Dad, I'm cold. Is there another blanket that you can give me?"

John took a deep breath and for a minute Sam thought that he was going to be told to toughen up. Then, he caught it; the look of concern on his father's face. He stood up from his seat. "I'll be back in a minute. I'm going to go ask that nurse for another one. Dean asked her for one a little while before he left, but she must have seen him leave and thought that she didn't need to do it."

Sam leaned his head back on the bed. It hadn't been a hug, but it was the closest thing John Winchester would ever give out. He had just started to drift back to sleep when he heard footsteps come back into the room. _'Whoever it is can just deal with me sleeping.'_ He was sure it had been his father coming back to the room.

Dean gasped when he came back in the room. Other than Sammy, it was empty. His baby brother had been left alone. "Where the hell did he go?" Dean had asked the question to no one in particular, and he was startled when he heard the voice.

"I'm cold." Sammy was awake, but he wasn't bothering to open his eyes. Dean moved closer to the bed, brushing Sam's forehead.

"Okay, I'll go get you a blanket." Dean said, not really wanting to leave his side. Sam had already been left behind for too long.

"No, Dad went to go get me a blanket. He was here." Fatigue was creeping into his voice, and Dean knew he wouldn't be able to stay awake for much longer.

"Oh, well...just rest Sam." Dean patted the top of Sam's hand and sat down in the chair closest to the bed, prepared to stand guard. He wished that his brother would stay up longer, but knew that he needed to sleep. Tomorrow, he would wake him up and they would watch TV or something. He needed to go get the laptop; not so they could find a new case, but so that Sam would have something to do when he woke up. Hell, he needed something to do when Sam wasn't awake. As much as he loved his brother, this place was driving him nuts.

From behind him, he heard the once familiar footsteps of their father. John stepped around the chair Dean was in and laid the blankets that he'd gotten from the scared nurse on his youngest son. He and Dean shared a glance and then Dean touched the blankets, counting them.

"How'd you get her to give you three blankets?" He asked suspiciously.

"I went down there and told her she needed to do her work better and if she didn't give me enough blankets to keep your brother warm that I would have her job." John Winchester was nothing if not assertive. It was what kept the boys in line for so many years. Dean shook his head.

"Nice going. I was trying to get a date with her." It was said with a smirk, and a sigh.

John didn't pay any attention to it, though. He had gone back to being all business. He shook the youngest member of their clan with a sharpness that left Dean wanting to take action against the old man. If he had questioned Sam being awake earlier, he had no doubts now. Sam awoke with a startle, looking around with glazed eyes. "We need to talk, son."

Sam sighed, but kept his eyes open. Dean wanted to throw their dad out of the room. Whatever it was could wait until tomorrow. "Dad..."

"No, Dean. The sooner we deal with this, the sooner it won't be an issue. Sam, Dean told me that they won't start chemotherapy until you tell them to. You need to do that when the doctor comes in the morning." John was in full military authoritarian mode. It had been a demand, not a request.

"No, dad...There's a reason why I didn't before, and why I won't now. It won't necessarily heal me and it'll make the rest of my life hell." Sam was clearly exhausted just having this conversation. He knew he wouldn't be able to withstand a round of chemo.

"That wasn't a request, Samuel. You will do this." Dean closed his eyes tightly, wondering why he had called their dad in the first place. Sure, he genuinely loved and cared about Sammy, but he knew where this was going, and this couldn't be good for his health.

"It's my choice. I'm old enough to deal with this my way." Sam said, his voice becoming a bit stronger. He felt sick to his stomach and he knew a lot of it had nothing to do with the argument he was currently having with his father.

"It's a done deal." John said to him. Dean saw the change in Sam, how pale he was getting and he looked like he would be sick any minute.

"Sam, please, for me, just give it a try. You're going to be okay. You just have to stick with this. Please." He wasn't beyond begging at this point, if only to end the argument.

"For you..." Sam looked around for a minute before trying to speak again, a whine in his voice. "Dean, I need..." Trying to get away from his bed, but failing miserably, Sam started to get sick before Dean could even move. A pan was handed to him by John. He glared at the older man, angry that he had caused this. In the back of his mind, he knew that when he had entered the room, Sam was probably already sick and being woken back up had probably just jarred it, but he needed a target.

"I'll go get a nurse to clean this up and bring him more blankets." John excused himself, and left the room.

"It'll be okay, Sammy." He cooed, comforting the only good thing that had ever been in his life.

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Merry Christmas everyone! Hope your holiday is nice, and your family get-togethers are peaceful.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Happy hunting!


	8. The Decision is Made

Merry Christmas everyone! Thanks for the reviews. It's been really helpful and supportive so far.

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By the time they got Sam cleaned up, he was an emotional mess. He had been so weak, and Dean wondered what had happened. He stood back, watching as two nurses scurried around, trying to help him. One of them had ran out of the room, an urgency about her when she said she was calling the on-call doctor. Dean was getting frustrated that no one would tell him what was going on. His baby brother was almost whining he was so upset, and he called for Dean. Dean was there, but trying to stay out of the nurses' way. If he wasn't so focused on his brother, he would have done what John actually did: John grabbed one of the young nurse's by the arm and made her look at him.

"We have been waiting patiently while you work, but his brother and I need to know what exactly is going on." John had a dangerous edge in his voice, and Dean assumed this was the one from earlier.

"Sir, Samuel has a fever of 104.2. We need you to calm down so that we can try to help your son." She said in just as clipped of a tone, and John let her go. He met Dean's eyes for a minute before going to stand beside him.

Dean wanted to scream. Sam had been here all day and they just now realized that his temperature had risen. What kind of craphole hospital was this? Hell, he should have known something was wrong, that the fever was building. There wouldn't have been an issue about him being cold if he had been all right.

In a whirlwind, the doctor came into the room and went over to where Sam was laying back down now. The nurses had put cooling blankets on him to try to lower his fever, and now he lay there shivering. Dean reminded himself that Sam couldn't be cold, they couldn't wrap him up in blankets and make everything better. The chill was a product of the fever. Changing his perspective, he tuned into what the doctor was doing with Sam. He had looked at the vitals, and begin talking to him.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Yes, in the hospital."

"Do you know why you're here?"

"I'm sick." Sam answered and Dean almost started laughing at the look that Sammy gave him. It clearly read 'I'm here because I'm sick, not because I have a head injury.' He didn't even know what all these questions were supposed to prove.

"Can you tell me how you feel?" The doctor said, either ignoring or not noticing the look Sam had given him. This question made Dean start to snicker and he covered it up with a fake cough. '_I feel just peachy doc.'_ These people had to be more stupid than anyone he'd ever met. He tried to calm down, telling himself that he was worked up because he was tired.

"Um, my head hurts, I'm cold. I was nauseous, but not anymore. I feel really light-headed, tired." At Sam's description of his own health situation, Dean felt his heart clench up. He had to remind himself that Sammy had told him that he would do Chemo for Dean. Even if he wasn't going to do this for himself, for any feelings he may have, he was going to try this for Dean. How many times had he gotten Sam to do things that way, by asking him to do it for him? He used to get little Sammy to eat things by asking him to take a few bites for him, to take medicine when he had ear infections for him, and to do bow-hunting lessons for him. Sam had always wanted to please him so much that he had gone along with everything for Dean. He wasn't about to stop using that to his advantage now when it meant the difference between a chance and a failure for Sammy's life.

"Okay, son, I'm going to give you some more medication for the fever and keep these blankets on you. I know it's cold, but when your temperature comes down, we'll take it off and give you regular blankets. Okay?" Sam fought the urge to glare at this man who treating him like a child. Instead, he nodded. The doctor turned around and motioned for John and Dean to follow him.

Once out in the hallway, the man began talking to them. "Right now, he has an ear infection. You were informed of this in the emergency room. There's not much that we can do that we aren't already doing."

"Is that why he's so weak? Why he feels light-headed?" Dean asked. Nobody had told them exactly what was wrong with Sam, just that he had cancer.

"Yes, but with the right antibiotics he will get better." This guy seemed too artificial. _'Doctor Doolittle.'_

"What was with all the stupid questions?" Dean asked, finally letting his anger get the best of him. John put his hand up to silence Dean but it was ignored.

"The questions were to test how alert and aware he is. I wanted to make sure we weren't dealing with something even more dangerous. Has he made any decisions regarding what care he'll allow us to give?" He was concise, blunt, and Dean didn't like it.

He sighed and rubbed his hands across his face.

"Sam will get Chemo." John stated. Dean had helped him to win the battle, but he felt he still needed to exert control. Dean took a deep breath. He wished his dad would be more of an ally than a dictator.

"Okay, let me go get the papers for him to sign and Dr. Lambert will start him on it tomorrow." He said it so casual, like this wouldn't make Sammy's life even more difficult before he got better...and he would get better.

The doctor went to get the papers and Dean looked at his father. "Do you think you could treat him better? He's not feeling well and your all over him. For once, be gentle."

He turned around and walked back into the room, leaving John standing in the hallway alone.

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Hope everybody enjoyed this chapter. I will try to update sometime tomorrow.

Aniki19- At this point in the story, John and Dean know what the doctor originally told them, and Ch. 7 was more about John trying to strongarm Sam.


	9. Reasons

Hey, guys. Once again, wanted to say thanks for all the reviews. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter.

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Dean went in the room and sat down. The nurses had left and Sammy looked so lost there alone. Dean had to admit that he looked cold, was shivering, and he had to control the urge to rip the cooling blanket off him and put real blankets on him.

"You really know how to do things dramatically." He groused. "I thought we agreed: No chick-flick moments. This definitely counts as a major chick-flick moment." It was all meant to be in fun, but the look on Sam's face made him stop. Maybe now wasn't the best time to tease Sammy.

"Sorry." Sam muttered, and closed his eyes with a sigh.

"Sorry Sammy." Dean said, sitting down next to his brother. "The doc said you can take the cooling blankets off when your fever comes down." It was the best attempt that he had right now of trying to make it all right for Sam.

"I heard him." Sam said quietly.

"He's going to come in here with papers for you to sign, Sam. It's so that you can start chemo." He didn't know why he felt like warning him, but he did. Maybe it was so that Sam didn't feel like he was more out of the loop in his own life. Their dad had already come in and taken over too much.

"Okay. Dean..." Sam wanted to ask him to be there, so that he didn't have to face this alone, but he couldn't voice it.

Dean leaned in to hear what Sam was going to say. "Thanks for staying with me."

"That's what I'm here for." Dean said, his voice faltering. Once again, he asked himself why this had to be happening. After Sam signed those papers, he would start treatment and everything would be made more real.

They sat in companionable silence, waiting for the doctor or their dad or both to come back in the room. Dean knew he might have driven the older Winchester away, but they could do this just fine on their own. Up until now, he'd just hurt Sammy anyways.

"Where did dad go?" Sam asked after about five minutes.

"He probably just went to go get some air. It gets really stuffy in here." Dean lied. He didn't know why he felt the need to lie to excuse their father, but he did.

The door opened back up, and both the doctor and John Winchester entered. Dean scoffed. His father was just waiting to come in until he figured Dean had cooled down.

"Samuel, these are papers stating that we can give you chemotherapy treatments starting tomorrow. These will be given to your primary doctor, and he will begin giving you the treatments. I just need you to sign here." The doctor explained to Sam, pointing out the crosses that he had made on the sheet.

Sam looked really hesitant, but he signed it anyway, looking at Dean to let him know that this was for him, no matter what happened. Dean bowed his head, knowing that this was not what Sam really wanted to do.

The doctor, taking the signed paper, left the room. Sam looked at Dean and said, "IV treatment. Don't know why I'm not surprised there." It was soft, but it was Sammy. Dean was surprised that Sam had even read the paper before signing it. He just seemed too out of it to be able to do that.

"I know you don't want to do this, but thank you for trying it." Dean needed to say something to try to reassure his baby brother. "Everything will be all right, Sammy. And I'm going to be right there with you all the way." A smile came to Dean's face as he remembered telling that to Sam in the car when they were leaving St Louis. It seemed like a long time that they had left Becky's house.

John cleared his throat, announcing his presence. He had stayed silent, in the background, up to this point and both of the boys jumped. They had forgotten he was even there. Moving to reclaim the seat on the other side of Sam, John gave Dean a brief look before speaking to Sam. Dean steeled himself against what he was going to say. "Sam, I'm sorry for being...overbearing. It just comes as second nature to me to take charge in a crisis. It won't happen again."

It would; they all knew it would, but for now, it was the closest to an acknowledgment that he cared as the man would ever offer. "Sure, dad." Sam said, just giving in.

The three Winchester men sat there in silence until Sam finally fell asleep. "What made you change your mind?" Dean asked his father as soon as the first soft snores came from his brother.

"I know that Sam's much different than you. He always has been. I guess I just forget sometimes that I do need to treat him differently." It was a weak excuse, but once again it was let go before it could escalate into a fight. It had to come to a cease-fire for Sammy.

They sat together, each watching the shivering, weak form that was Sam for the rest of the night. Dean tried to make himself relax. Whatever needed to be dealt with could be dealt with in the morning.

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Thanks for sticking with me on this story. If you have any comments or constructive criticism, be sure to send me a review. I always appreciate them.

Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.


	10. The Treatment Begins

Sorry the update took so long. The thing just would not post. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter. Another should be posted soon.

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Dean was getting impatient. It had been two days since the doctor had told him that Sammy had cancer, and they were just now starting chemo. He knew that time was of the essence and that his baby brother was losing it. Too much time had already been lost before he even knew what was happening.

During the night, he had fought hard against getting rid of the blanket that was making Sammy cold, but reminded himself that it was only a few more hours. Once they got the fever down, they would take it off, and he could cover him in a mountain of blankets.

Getting up from his seat, he got closer to his brother's bed. "I'll be back, Sammy." He promised him, gently brushing some of his hair back. As quietly as he could, as to not wake his father, he made his way out of the room, taking extra care with the door. There was a blanket down in the car that they used to wrap Sam up in when he was a little kid. When Dean was old enough to hunt, and they had to leave him in the car, John would put salt and cat's-eye-shells around the outside of the whole car and he would make sure his little brother was wrapped up tightly in the heavy blanket. They had originally gotten it from their grandma and so the old quilt should have reminded him of her, but it was all Sammy. He would need it now. It wouldn't make up for the chill he had to endure all night, but it would be a start, Dean's peace offering. He went to the car and grabbed it and Sam's backpack with the laptop and got back up there as quickly as he could.

John was awake when Dean came back. "How long have you been awake?" He asked him, surprised.

"I saw you leave the room. I taught you boys to sleep lightly, and I sleep lightly." He informed Dean, like he needed to. Dean clearly remembered the lectures about not letting your guard down.

"Yeah, I remember."

"It's almost six o'clock. What time did his doctor come last time?" John felt awkward asking his son for information regarding Sammy. He should be the one in charge here.

"Um, around nine or ten, I think. I didn't really look at my watch. I had other things to worry about." He gave his father an odd look. Would **he** have checked his watch?

"Then he should come about that time today?" John asked again, all-business.

"Yeah, dad, probably."

They sat like that, each silently waiting and watching Sam to make sure he was okay until Dr. Lambert arrived three hours later. He came in with a smile on his face, but Dean wasn't in a mood to share the expression. They needed actions, not niceties.

"Good morning. Let's see how Sam's doing this morning." Dean was surprised the doctor remembered that he preferred to be called Sam from their one conversation. '_Please let the fever be down so we can warm him up._' "Well, the fever is down to 101.2, so we can take the cooling blanket off."

Dean let go of the breath he had been holding. This was good. They would need to wait for the doctor to leave to put the well-worn quilt on him, but as long as he had a time-frame, he could wait.

"Sam, wake up." The doctor instructed and Sam opened his eyes. He looked a little confused about where he was, but it was the kind of confusion anyone would get from being woken up by a strange voice. His eyes looked much clearer than they had last night, and he seemed a little stronger.

"I'm going to start you on chemotherapy this morning. Has everything been explained to you?" The doctor continued on once he saw that Sam was alert.

"Not really." Sam admitted, a bit hesitant.

"Okay, you'll be administered the chemotherapy through an injection into your spinal canal and several drugs to control the symptoms through IV. The treatments need to be administered as quickly as possible since the disease was given time to progress, so they will be administered three times a week for a period of four weeks. After this time, we'll make a determination about how the treatment is working. Do you have any questions?" The doctor was speaking directly to Sam and this made Dean happy. He needed to feel like he was involved with this.

"Am I going to get sick?" Sam asked and Dean started to laugh and covered it up with a cough. He already was sick and the way he had phrased it just sucked.

The doctor took a deep breath. "There will also be other drugs administered to help prevent side effects, but I can't make any promises."

"Is it going to hurt?" Sam asked. He hated needles, the feel of needles, and he needed to know if they would give him something to numb the area before using needles. When they had inserted the IV in the emergency room, he had been unconscious. The chemo wasn't going through the IV. That much he got.

"No more than giving blood would." '_More like a spinal tap_' Dean thought. He heard how it was described. On television, it usually showed people screaming when they got one of those, and he had always thanked his lucky stars that he never had to get one. Now, though, Sammy would get something very similar and more than once.

"Okay." Sam was getting too quiet for Dean's comfort now. "Will I lose my hair?" It was said quietly, almost as a whisper. He didn't want their dad to know that he was even thinking about that.

"You may, but it doesn't always happen." The doctor explain.

Sam nodded his head. "Okay, I understand everything."

The doctor turned around so that he was facing Dean and John. "Do you want to leave the room while we get the IV's started and administer the chemotherapy?"

Dean's heart caught in his throat. He didn't want to see his baby brother in pain, didn't want to be there for it, but he couldn't just leave him. Looking off into space, he waited for Sammy to either say he wanted them to stay or go. He would leave the decision up to him on this one.

"No, please, can they stay?" He begged. Dean felt his heart that had been in his throat break. This was too much. He was quietly humming Metallica to himself to calm his shot nerves.

"We're staying Sammy. Don't worry." Dean told him firmly by way of calming him. The doctor excused himself to go get the medicines and a nurse to help him administer everything. Dean took his spot next to Sam holding onto his hand, hoping that he would be allowed to stay this close when they were doing the treatment. Sam snickered nervously when he heard the familiar humming. So, there was something other than airplanes that made his big brother anxious.

"You don't have to stay." Sam told Dean and his father. His father was holding it together, standing back away from the scene, but he didn't think the man would want to be there for this. He wouldn't blame him. He didn't want to be here for this and he was the one it was happening to.

"No, we're gonna be here. Everything will be all right." Where the hell was the damn doctor? The anxiety from waiting would probably do more damage than if they had just gotten it over with. Dean could just see Sammy tensing up and it making the needle hurt more.

The doctor and nurse came into the room and Dean felt Sammy grip his hand as hard as he could. Encouragingly, he squeezed back just as hard. Sammy looked like he was ready to start hyperventilating and his eyes clearly said '_You know what? I changed my mind. I don't want to do this._'

'_Just get it done with!_'Dean yelled at them in his mind.

The nurse adjusted the other medications into the IV and the doctor moved to the back of Sam's skull. He put something in the base of his neck first to make sure the medication went to the spinal fluid, and Dean saw Sam flinch in pain. Sam tried to steel himself, but as the needle entered his skin, he started to scream loudly in agony.

John stood back, watching this, watching them hurt his baby, and for a moment he saw his baby. He wanted to grab up Sammy as he had the night Mary died and run from the room. He couldn't deal with seeing his baby in pain. He started to remind himself that this was helping, that he'd rather see a hurting Sammy than go to the funeral of another person he loved. The screaming ebbed out and stopped. Sammy was okay. It had hurt while the needle was in, but after it was taken out, his son was okay.

Dean held onto his baby brother during the whole treatment, his heart shattering into little tiny pieces until the needle was out andhe wasn't screaming anymore. Sammy was shaking within his arms now, but he was fine.

"Sam will be fine, but just in case, I will be around. Just page the nurse and I can be here immediately." The doctor told the two shaken up men before leaving the room. John followed and closed the door behind them once they were out.

"Is it always going to hurt him that much?" He asked the doctor. It had been years since he'd seen his son react that way to pain, and he needed reassurances that he'd made the right choice for his family.

"No. Quite frankly, the only reason it hurt as much as it did this time is because Sam was anxious and tense. The next time, he'll know what's coming and won't be so anxious about it." John nodded, sure of himself once again that the right decision had been made. He would just need to remind his boy that his emotions needed to be controlled.

Back in the room, Dean had thrown off the cooling blanket, into some far corner of the room, and wrapped Sammy up in his quilt. He sat there, rocking him for a moment, just holding him. Sam had calmed down but was still shaking, and Dean wanted to protect him.

"It's all right, Sammy."

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A/N: Don't forget about the "Supernatural"marathon this week Also, "Devour" which has Jenson in it, is pretty good. Saw it last night...while I was freaking out that my internet would not post my chapter.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please feel free to leave any bits of constructive criticism or praise.

Happy hunting!


	11. The Fight

Well, here's another chapter. Hope you enjoy it. Thank you so much for the reviews you have been giving me.

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Dean was going to kill that damn doctor. Sure, he claimed that he had given Sam drugs to lessen the side effects, but they weren't working. Sam didn't want him to call for the doctor, but he looked like he was hurting really bad. He kept taking gasping breaths, but pushed it aside, telling them that he was fine.

Sam hated feeling like this. He could tell that Dean was upset just having to be around him, and he wanted to take off. The back of his neck felt like there was so much pressure on it that it hurt. Nausea rolled over him and he fought it. The last time he had gotten sick, they put the cooling blanket on him, and he didn't want to repeat the experience of having to be cold. Right now, he might be able to deal with it. It had to be at least ninety degrees in this room. Why would they turn up the heat this much right after taking off the blanket that had been meant to keep him cool? He needed to get out of here. Something wasn't right. If he could get the IV out of his arm and Dean out of the room, he might be able to make a break for it. If he crawled, he could get away. At the very least, he could get to the elevator and then he could get to the Impala. His mind was racing. He needed to get out of here. Dean had put his head in his hands, and Sam took the opportunity. Ripping off the tape that covered the IV, he began to pull the needle out.

Dean put his head up when he heard the loud rip. Eyes widening, he jumped up grabbing his little brother's hands. "Stop it! Sammy, just stop it! You're hurting yourself. Just relax." he said, his voice taking a strong, commanding tone. He needed to get Sam to get what he was saying. Sam was fighting him as hard as he could, and it seemed he was given strength by hysterics.

"Sam, I need you to stop fighting me." He said, trying to hide how frustrated he was, but it came out in his tone. If Sam kept fighting him, it was a real possibility that Dean could hurt him on accident.

"No, Dean, I gotta get outta here. Please, let me get outta here. We can just leave. Come on, there are people that need us. Somewhere, there are people dying because we aren't there to help them. Can you live with that?" Sam was begging, pleading, his voice racing as much as his thoughts were. He thought he knew Dean's weakness. Dean loved the hunt. He could never turn down a chance to get out there and hunt.

Dean's real weakness laid there in front of him. He could never do anything that would put Sam in danger. "No, Sammy. You need to relax. We're gonna beat this thing, and then we can go. Right now, this is the demon we have to fight. Just lay back down. I can get you something to make it better, but please lay back down." He had a suspicion that Sam's fever had shot up again. This was really close if not at delirious. Trying to gage just how high it may have gotten, he brushed his hand across Sam's forehead. The effect was immediate. As Dean set his hand on his forehead, Sam balled his hands into fists and threw them at his big brother. He started hitting him, and then clawing at him, trying to get up, to get away.

Dean clenched his jaw and pressed the "call nurse" button on the bedside remote. He took several deep, calming breaths, trying to squelch the anger. Sammy didn't know what he was doing. He stepped back from his brother, allowing him the space that he would need to chill out. Sam started to get up from the bed and Dean pushed him back. There was no way he would be able to stand on his own, and he couldn't just stand there and let him fall. Sam threw one more punch before Dean slapped him hard out of frustration. It was loud, and the effect was instant. Sam stopped all motion and looked at Dean. His eyes spoke the volumes of hurt that he felt, and Dean wanted to cry. Damn their father and his wanting to get them all food. If he had been here, he could have helped with Sammy. Dean took one more look at his brother, the look on his face, and turned to flee from the room. He could feel the tears dwelling up in his eyes. The sheets on the bed crinkled and he knew his brother was getting up, but he fled. He heard his brother fall hard on the ground as he walked by the doorway, but the nurse was there. The nurse could help him back into bed, could get the IV back in his arm, and could do a lot better than he had. "Dean." Sam cried, but Dean was already out the door.

Finally sitting down in the empty lounge area by the elevators, Dean let all the grief and frustration out in the form of tears. He hadn't cried in a long time, not even when they were in Lawrence, but he couldn't help it now. His baby brother, the one who he had been responsible for since the moment their dad laid him in his arms and told him to take him out of the house, was laying there helpless. He had no idea what he was doing, and Dean had slapped him. He slapped him. There was no excuse for it. A million other ways that he could have handled him were now in his head, but he couldn't change the fact that when it was happening, he had failed. Sammy would never forgive him, and neither would their dad. Even if they did, he would never forgive himself.

This was how John Winchester found his older son, sitting in one of the chairs crying. His first thought was that something had gone wrong with Sammy, that his baby boy had gotten really sick or worse, had died while he was getting them food. Setting the McDonald's bags down, he sat down next to Dean. "Dean, what happened? What's wrong?" He demanded of the young man.

"Dad...I messed up. I hit Sammy. He was confused, had no idea what was going on, and trying to get away and hitting me...and I slapped him. I pushed him back on the bed and then I slapped him. I can't believe that I did that." His eyes were huge, sorrowful, pleading their father for forgiveness.

"Dean, it's okay. You've been at his side basically every minute for the last three days. You're under a lot of stress. Probably even more stress than he is, because you're right, he doesn't know what's going on. You do. He's going to be okay. Why don't you go find a hotel, take a shower because you're starting to smell worse than some of the things we hunt, sleep in a real bad for a few hours, and then come back? I'll be here." He instructed his son, pulling him up and turning him towards the elevator. Grabbing up the bag, he pulled out a Big Mac and fries. "Here's your meal, Dean."

"What did you get Sammy?" Dean asked, wiping his eyes.

"Chicken McNuggets." He said, his mouth forming a smile. Dean swallowed another lump that had formed in his throat, and returned the smile. When they were small, Sammy would ask their dad to get him a Chicken McNugget Happy Meal every time they passed a McDonald's. With their hectic life, the whole backseat would be littered with McNugget boxes. God, were these the kind of things that he would remember if...? Quilts and food choices he had as a child.

"Thanks, dad. He'll like it." He said quietly, before getting on the elevator, fighting the ominous feelings that if he left, something would happen and he wouldn't be here for him. His dad was right: He needed a break. When he got back, he could talk to Sam, get him to forgive him.

John Winchester made his way back into the room where his younger son lay. His arms were tied down on the bed with leather restraints, and he walked down to the nurse's station. He wasn't sure he could keep his voice down or if Sammy had been sedated as well. Standing directly in front of the nurse, he cleared his throat. Reading the nametag, he started talking. "Hi, Jenny. I would like to know why you feel the need to restrain a significantly weakened cancer patient. If you could explain that to me, it would be appreciated."

"Sir, he was trying to remove his IV's. He was in danger of hurting himself. We simply acted to protect your son." He raised his eyebrow in surprise. Appartently, it had gotten around who he was. It was nice to have made an impression.

"Well, I'm in there now. If he tries to get lose again, I'll take care of him." He turned and walked away, not waiting for the nurse to answer. His son looked so weak now that whatever had happened had passed. There was a bruise on the side of his face that John only had to guess was from Dean. It wasn't that big, but he tried to think of some way to cover it. If Dean saw that, no matter how small the bruise, he would use it to create guilt. While proud of the boy's relationship, he often envied it as well. When Sammy was hurt or sick, he never looked to him to make it better. The only person he wanted was Dean. The only reason why he stayed now, was because Dean needed a break every now and again. Someday, he would become unneeded. They would depend solely on each other, and he would be pushed out.

Sam's eyes fluttered open and looked at his father. He was still a little warm and his mind was still racing faster than he could keep up, but the franticness and the nausea had passed. "Dad?"

"Yes, Sam?" John said, taking the washcloth that he had been getting wet for Sammy's face away from the water and moving to stand closer to the bed than he had been.

"I messed up...I lost control of my emotions, got scared, and hit Dean. He's been here for me through everything, and I hit him over and over. He's probably so mad at me. He slapped me and then he left and hasn't been back. What am I going to do if he doesn't come back?" Sam looked so lost. John had to put on his game face.

"Well, a lot of things would be a lot easier for you if you were in better control of your emotions. However, Dean hasn't left you. He just went to go take care of himself. He's not mad at you. Next time, remember how this feels before you act so foolishly." It was said gruffly, and Sam couldn't help but wonder if his dad was just as mad at him as Dean was. He looked away so that he didn't have to face his father. The man had always been disappointed in him and this didn't help matters.

"I got you a Chicken McNugget meal. I figured you aren't feeling well and didn't deserve hospital food." He told Sam in the same voice, putting the washcloth on his face and handing him the food.

After eating, they sat there in silence, Sam watching TV until he passed out and John looking at what his boys had been up to on Sammy's laptop that Dean had been brought in. This was the picture that met Dean when he returned seven hours later at eight o'clock at night.

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Hope you enjoyed it. I will post the next chapter either tomorrow or the next day. Please feel free to leave constructive criticism and praise.

Mystery: Wow, you're insightful. Thanks for the long review and for getting the points that I was trying to make.


	12. Righting the Wrong

Hey, this chapter is kinda on the short side, but I'm going to try to update before we're not able topostnew chapterstomorrow. Hope you're enjoying the story.

Kaewi: Hey, sorry about that. I guess either I thought it was implied or that I had written that John removed the restraints. That why he was telling the nurse that he was going to be in there now. Thanks for pucking up on it, though.

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While Dean and his father were still sleeping, Sam had woken up. He lay there, just looking out the window watching the snow fall outside the window. As it was falling, he wondered to himself if the snowflakes had dreams of where they wanted to go, and if the dreams were coming true. The ones that had landed in the road and were quickly dissipated by the warmness from the cars probably wanted to land in the grass where they would be able to stay for a while. He felt sorry for the lonely snowflakes that had landed in the street, and an underlying anger at the snowflakes that had been lucky enough to land in the grass. Did the ones that landed in the street know they were going there or were they taken by total surprise as the ones that landed in the grass watched helpless to do anything for them? Dean needed to wake up so that they could talk and he wouldn't be trapped in his thoughts. Sure, Dean would probably be angry at him, might not even talk to him, but he came back, so that had to mean that there was a chance. Right?

"Dean," He said softly, sounding weak even to himself. He laid back and closed his eyes. It just took too much energy that he didn't have. There was a hand on his forehead, and he wondered why he had missed the movement around him. His eyes flew open and connected with Dean's before he drew them away. He didn't need to see the disappointment in the eyes of the one person who had taken care of him through everything.

Dean saw his baby brother turn his head from him, and he felt the shame return. He looked at the bruise that he had caused, and stepped away and towards the window. If Sammy needed his space, he would make sure he got it. He got halfway over there when he heard sobbing coming from behind him. It was stifled to try to mask it, but Dean heard it clearly.

"Hey, Sammy. Don't cry. It's gonna be okay. We're gonna work this out." He said, arms surrounding him in a gentle hug. Just like the previous morning after they had started the chemo, he rocked him gently whispering reassurances to him.

"I'm sorry, Dean. I shouldn't have hit you yesterday. I don't know..." Sammy had stopped crying and gotten his emotions under control by now. His brother shouldn't have had to comfort him when he was the one who messed up.

"I'm sorry, too. How about we just call a truce?" Dean told him, trying to make things be just normal. These chick-flick moments were getting old fast. Sam nodded, just enjoying the quiet moment.

Their dad was awake now, sitting back quietly and watching as his sons mended each other's wounds just by being there. He cleared his throat when Dean moved away from the bed to sit back in his seat. "You need to keep your emotions in check. This is what happened yesterday."

"No, what happened yesterday is that Sammy started chemo and it made him get sick. He didn't feel right and he panicked. Everything that happened on his part was a reaction of the chemo." Dean explained to their dad, beginning to get angry at the man.

"So, is that going to be his excuse then?" He asked Dean first, then turned to Sammy. "Is that going to be your excuse? You get to hit people and get restrained because you're trying to rip out your IV because you're getting chemo. Is it going to be like this every time?"

"Hey," Dean said with the same anger in his voice that he had when the shapeshifter was trying to kill Sam. "This was the first time. It won't happen again. We'll make sure of that." It was his job to defend his brother. Ever since Sam had hit puberty and started to go toe to toe with their dad, he had been there to defend his brother. Right now, Sammy needed both of them. He didn't need their dad expecting him to hide his emotions and side effects.

"Fine. I hope we don't see a repeat of this." John knew that he wasn't going to win this battle. The boys had worked everything out and were now shutting him out again. It was the way it was supposed to be, but it still hurt him.

The day passed in relative peace. Dean tried to get his baby brother to stay awake more. The time that they were going to have together might be cut down by a lot, and he didn't want the last lucid moments to be spent with Sammy sleeping. So, they watched movies and just hung out. Sammy tired out easily, but it wasn't that bad. They could almost be convinced that Sammy just had an infection, and that all would be well.

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Hope you liked this chapter. Again, another should be posted later tonight. Feel free to leave me a note telling me what you think of the story.

Mystery: Always appreciate your comments.

GuestTypePerson: A relative of mine was in the hospital a couple weeks ago, and during the twenty minutes or so that I was there, the TVspeaker went off (I think) three or four times with one of the nurses looking for another.


	13. The Seriousness of the Situation

So, yeah, here's the next chapter. Sorry for the hold-up. I had another chapter but re-reading it, needed to scrap it. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

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Dean stood by his brother, trying to convince himself that this was helping, that chemotherapy was going to save his brother's life. They were on the third treatment, and already Sammy was having symptoms that none of them had wanted to see. The doctor had come in there over three hours ago to administer the torture treatment, and Sammy was still nauseous. He had promised them that the next time wouldn't hurt as bad, but it did. And to make matters worse, Sammy had been vomiting. He wouldn't eat, either. Just weakly pushed them away when they tried to get him to eat. There had been talk of feeding him through a tube, but Dean had tried again, gently coaxing him that he had to eat and maintain his strength so they could fight this thing. Sammy had eaten for him. It hurt him after, but he had eaten for him.

This time was just as bad, he had been sick twice in three hours and he was now laying there on the bed, rolled up in the fetal position, oblivious to anything that was going on in the world. Both John and Dean stood as guardians over the youngest Winchester, each knowing that if anything did decide to come after them, Sammy would have just as much luck in stopping it as a kitten would. Dean gently rubbed his baby brother's back, letting him know without making a sound that he was there. The headaches had gotten worse and he had complained to them of being dizzy when he brought his head up. Overall, Dean had never felt so helpless in his life. It was worse than finding his brother, knelt down on the floor, grasping his chest when Bloody Mary had tried to kill him or when that monster attacked him when he was four and Dean had to watch as he ran toward him but was scooped off the ground. He had almost lost his brother both times, but neither of them compared to how he felt now. Those times, it had been sudden and had ended almost as suddenly. He had been fine minutes after Mary had gotten to him and he had been fine a couple of days after the incident when he was four. Two days in PICU didn't measure up to the fear, desperation and helplessness from a week knowing Sam was going to die and watching as the chemo had no effect on his already weakened body. Dean knew that they would lose him; it wouldn't be without a fight, but they would lose. They were already losing.

Dean looked up at their father who stood at the other side of the bed, holding onto Sammy's hand. They shared a glance for a moment before feeling Sam try to get up. The incident that happened the first time wasn't repeated, but they knew he was trying to get to a safe place to be sick. John reached down to grab the trash can and drag the quilt away from Sam. They gave the trash can to Sam and walked away giving him time.

"Dad, this isn't helping." Dean whispered, just out of earshot of Sam. He was worried that this was making his brother worse and the sickness that had taken over him didn't help things.

"Dean, we just have to wait this out. He'll get better." John said, and once again Dean glared at him. He knew they had no other choice, but this wasn't good either. He was getting weaker and the other drugs, the ones that were supposed to help, weren't.

"We can't sit here and wait this out. Look at him!"

John sighed and was about to continue the argument when they heard Sam's voice. "Dean." It was low, barely more than a whisper although frantic, but Dean was there in a minute, ready to help his baby brother.

"Hey, how you doing?" He asked, trying to maintain a sense of normalcy. He needed to be the tough one here. If he showed weakness, then who would Sam have to turn to?

"I'm doing okay. I just wondered where you went." Sam said, looking very much lost.

"I'm right here. I didn't go anywhere."

"Can I have a Tylenol or something? I have a headache." He asked Dean in as casual a voice as he could manage.

"Can't do it, Sammy. I have no idea what they're giving you, or if what I give you could make you sicker." He felt bad, not being able to help his brother, but his hands were completely tied. A wave of helplessness came over him again as he thought about how he couldn't protect Sam against what his own body was doing. '_You know what God? I am so sick of begging. When I find you, I'm gonna beat the crap out of you_.' Dean thought, remembering his thoughts in the emergency room.

"I'll be fine, Dean. It's okay to just give me a Tylenol or an Aspirin." Sam said, in his best "I know what I'm talking about" voice. If he could convince Dean to just give him something, he would feel better and be able to sleep for a while.

"How about this? I'm going to call the nurse..." He looked back at his father stifling a chuckle and grabbing the cord that controlled the TV and called the nurse. "And we're going to ask her _nicely_ to bring you something to make your headache better. Okay?"

"Dean, if I have to ask for even a pain killer, then I'm leaving. I'm getting out of here. Bring me my clothes, please." His voice had gotten a bit stronger with anger, but it still sounded like a six year-old trying to give out orders to a bunch of adults. '_Don't do this again, little brother_.'

Dean called the nurse, while Sam sat quietly, an angry look on his face. He wouldn't meet Dean's eyes and he tried to lift himself out of bed so that he could go get his own clothes. John came up from behind him and grabbed the back of the pajama gown that he was wearing, effectively pulling him back on the bed. "Listen to me, Samuel. Sometimes, you're going to have to do some things that you don't like. This is one of those times. Relax and stop fighting us on this." His voice was stern, authoritative, and no nonsense. Sam was stilled immediately, still cowed by his dad's voice. The man was treating him like a stubborn child, but he listened.

The nurse came into the room with a cheery smile, and Dean wondered if she should get an academy award or if she just hadn't heard about John Winchester yet. "Hi, I'm Nurse Emily. What seems to be the problem?" Dean flashed her a smile, thinking about flirting with her as he had with Jessica the night he saw her in Sam's kitchen, but thought better of it.

"My brother's having an extremely hard time. He's nauseous and complaining of a headache now. Is there any way we can talk to the doctor or at least give Sam an aspirin or something?" He wanted to keep up the friendly conversation and keep his father from talking.

"I can page the doctor for you, Mr. Winchester, but I'm not authorized to give him any medication unless it's specified on his chart. Drug interactions and such, you know?" She spoke to him and the clear impression that she really did feel bad. He liked this lady a lot better than some of the other nurse's that had been in there.

"Yeah, sure, that would nice. Thanks." He shot her one of his million dollar smiles and she left to go page the doctor. "See, Sammy, remember, fun? That would be fun."

He saw Sam roll his eyes. "What?"

"I'm laying here sick and you're thinking about getting laid...by my nurse. Good to see we're keeping things normal." Dean shrugged his shoulders.

The doctor came five minutes later, and spoke with Sam for a while. He explained to Sam that he would give him an Ibuprofen for the headache, but that the other symptoms should be taken care of by the drugs he had already been giving him, so he would just up the dosage. When he got up to leave, Dean grabbed Sam's hand for a second, giving it a tight squeeze to reassure him before following his dad and the doctor out to the hall.

"I don't know why he's not responding to the drugs. We'll increase the dosage and see if that doesn't help him." Dr Lambert explained to the two men standing before him.

"What **are** you giving him?" Dean asked point-blank. He may need to get on the laptop and get his information that way. Everyone who worked here was so stupid and useless.

"We have him on four different medications right now. That's why we have to practice extreme caution with any over-the-counter medications he gets. The medicines are: Neulasta to build up his immune system. It's a fairly new drug that-"

Dean cut him off. "Yeah, we saw it on TV. What else?"

"Compazine, that should be helping him with the nausea. I'm surprised that he's having the amount of nausea that he reports considering the dosage. I've increase the dosage, but there's only so much that we can give him. If this dosage doesn't work, I can try giving him something else, but he'll probably have a little nausea than usual. He's getting more of the chemotherapy than usual because his cancer was so out of control. Then, we're giving him-Are you okay, son?" The doctor cut off his explanation of the next drug as he looked at Dean. He had gone pale all of a sudden, having the seriousness spelled out more clearly for him. He knew it was bad, but hearing how bad made him sick to his stomach.

"Yeah, I'm fine. What else?" Dean wanted to hear all this, didn't need for the doctor to coddle him. He would be fine when he got back to Sammy.

"We're giving him Ethyol to prevent kidney damage, nerve damages, and mucous membrane inflammation. The dizziness we were talking about may be caused by this drug. It also may be the cause for some of the nausea."

Dean jumped up from his seat and moved back behind the couches they were sitting in. He walked back and forth quickly, rubbing his hand over his hair. "What you're saying is that it's not all the chemo's fault? It's the medications you're giving him to fight the side effects of the chemo. That's great."

"They all have side effects. You can't take any medication without having side effects. This is the best drug to treat a number of problems with. Would you like me to continue?" Dean looked at the man for a moment, before nodding his head, not trusting himself to unclench his jaw. He came back to sit down. "Neumega is being given to lower blood platelet counts. Basically, so that we don't have to transfuse his blood following chemo. This also could cause nausea, dizziness, and what is probably causing the headache. It also can cause blurred vision and swelling in the arms or legs." Dean put his head in his hands for a moment, remembering how desperate Sammy had sounded earlier, how he didn't know they were there even though they were only across the small room.

"Is it permanent?" Dean asked, not able to speak clearly past the lump in his throat.

"No, most side effects stop once the medication is stopped. If you gentlemen have no further question, I have other patients that I need to see to. Sam will be fine. He just needs to continue the chemotherapy at the set interval and his chances look good."

"Okay. Thank you for your time." John told the doctor, dismissing him. He knew Dean couldn't talk right now. Dean looked at him.

"This is messed up." He told his dad.

"Yes, it is. What do you say we go back to the room?" John got up from his chair and started walking down the hall, not waiting as Dean followed closely behind. They went into the room and Sam was still awake. He smiled at them, and reached out for Dean.

"Take me home." Sam told Dean.

"What are you, that Constance bitch? 'Take me home'" He said, mocking his little brother. "No, seriously, we have to sit tight for a little bit more, and then we can go anywhere you want."

He sat down, ignoring the watery quality of the puppy-dog look Sam was giving him. '_It ain't working._' He sat there petting Sammy's baby fine hair for a long time, his brother back in the fetal position that he had been in and watched as he went to sleep. '_Don't take him from me.'_

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Hope you liked this chapter. Feel free to leave me a note whether it be constructive criticism or praise.

Two things: 1. There have been stories about the brothers as children, but for some reason people are obsessed with six and eight for Sam's age. My reference here is something that could have happened at a younger age. 2. The whole pajama gown thing: It's a pair ofscrub pants with a gownover it. I request it every time I have to go to the hospital. I'm sure there are some people who would love to see Sam with just the open-backed gown ( ;) lol) but I'm pretty sure John's not one of them.


	14. It Was a Game

Hey guys! Happy New Year! Thank you all for the reviews you've been giving me. I hope that you'll like this chapter.

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Sam looked at his brother, sleeping in his chair. They had been there for a little over two weeks now, and he'd only left maybe eight times, including the two times that he'd left to call their father. It had to be horrible for him to sit there and watch this, and he wished he'd leave. There was only so much a person could take, and if he didn't take a longer break, then he'd resent even the memory of Sam.

It looked like it was only about four or five o'clock outside, but they had a hard morning. He hated putting them through this, but needed them there. He made a decision and put his arm toward Dean, trying to wake him.

"Dean," He called. His brother was awake immediately, looking at him with wide eyes. His voice sounded quiet even to him. He couldn't raise it though, because his chest hurt.

"What's the matter?" Dean asked him.

"I want you to leave for a while." It tore at him, because he didn't want him to leave him. He almost hoped that Dean told him 'no.'

"Not happening." Dean said, clenching his jaw shut. Save for the times calling their dad and after he had slapped Sam, it had been a struggle to make him leave. Their father had left so many times, but Dean was always there. Dean knew that something could get Sammy, even if the nurses were there. He couldn't leave him like that. Especially since their father was gone now.

"Please, Dean. You need to have some breathing room. Remember the last time we didn't have any breathing room, we got so upset with each other that I was able to get possessed and tried to kill you." Sam tried to argue with his big brother, but all he heard was his baby brother's voice barely getting the strength to lift above a whisper.

"That was a different situation altogether. Plus, I doubt you'll be able to do much damage right now, anyway. I'm not leaving you." It was said with a laugh in his voice, teasing his brother to get him to drop it. Dean was being stubborn and Sammy got that look on his face, the one that told Dean that Sammy was frustrated. He smirked; this could make Sammy fight, and hell, anything that did that was a good thing.

"Look, Dean. I'll be fine. Dad will be back soon and he can take over your 'guard duty.'" He paused for a moment before saying slowly. "I will be okay."

Dean didn't like it, but he finally gave up. "Fine. Two hours."

"Six."

Dean sighed, frustrated now as well. "...Fine." He got up and left the room. Once out in the hall, he walked down to the lobby area where he had sat a couple of times that he had been told to leave and picked up one of the "Car and Driver" magazines that were in a pile on the table. He'd sit out here until their dad came back, keeping an ear out for Sammy. Then, he'd go get something to eat and maybe play a game of pool. That should make Sam and his dad happy.

Sam felt the anger rise up in him. He knew the familiar cadence of his brother's footsteps and he had been doing his best to listen to him and for the chime of the elevator as his brother got on it. He heard him walk only a little bit and then the sound stopped. '_Okay, so either my hearing's going or he found somewhere to sit just down the hall_' He tried to call, and found that his voice wouldn't go passed a harsh whisper. "Dean."

Dean heard the voice of his brother, but it sounded tired, not scared. He debated letting Sammy know that he was out here, offer his help, and then get told that he had to really leave or keeping quiet and being allowed to stay out here. He flipped another page in his magazine, looking at the 1974 Trans Am on that page. Nice car. When his baby finally gave out, he would have to find a way to get one.

"Dean, I know you're out there. I heard your footsteps stop." Sammy tested again.

Dean once again ignored the voice. Sammy was definitely not in danger, and maybe if he just kept his cool, he would be able to stay right where he was, protecting his brother. Besides, this was a fun game.

Sammy tried once more, finally figuring out a way to bait him out. "Dean, I don't feel good. I need you to come back. Call the doctor for me."

Dean almost started laughing, shaking his head. Did he really think that he was that stupid? They had been playing a game, whether Sammy knew it or not, and he wasn't just about to give himself up. It worried him, though. Maybe he could go tell the nurse to check on Sam in a few minutes, make sure everything was fine.

Maybe Dean really had left. Good; maybe he would finally start listening to him. Sam laid his head back on the bed, and allowed his eyes to drift closed. Nurse Emily came into the room as he was drifting off, and told him that she was doing checks and asked if everything was all right. He told her that he was fine, and asked if he could get something for his headache. His vision had been blurry the last week or so and it made his head hurt after having his eyes open for so long. She smiled, and walked off to get him the Ibuprofen.

"Dean" she whispered as she walked up to the young man. "He's fine. He just told me he had a headache."

"Okay, thank you." Dean told her just as quietly. He had stressed to her the importance of Sammy not knowing that he was here. Of course, he'd lied a little as to why they had been fighting. He couldn't risk her sympathizing with Sam.

"You know, since you guys are fighting anyway, why don't you take this time to go get some rest, do something you want to do. I get off my shift in about half an hour, and I could come with you." She offered.

He raised his eyebrows and got the memory of that Hailey girl on the Wendigo case a few months earlier asking him if he must go there pass through his mind. It wouldn't hurt anything to have some female company. Maybe he could just go for an hour or so. Behind him, the elevator dinged, and he tensed up. His dad had told him that he needed to go make a few phone calls and take care of some things and he would be back. It shouldn't take too long. This could be him.

"Dean, why aren't you with your brother?" John asked in a harsh voice. His helpless son had been left alone so that his oldest son could talk to some woman.

"He asked me to leave for a while. I just came out here to sit until he was asleep."

They heard a bed creak as if someone was getting up, and the two Winchester men took off running. He couldn't get up, and it wouldn't be anybody else on this whole floor. Nobody in the oncology wing would be that healthy. Coming back into the room, they were greeted with Sam trying to lift himself off the bed. He glared at Dean, and Dean felt as if the look had shot daggers through him. With how sick he had been, this could be their last few months, weeks, or days together, he'd been caught lying to him.

"Samuel, you shouldn't be getting out of bed. Lay back down!" John Winchester yelled at Sam and Dean felt guilt that almost drove him to tears. It had been a game and now Sam was getting yelled at.

Sam laid back and looked defeated. Dean came over to him to try to take care of him, but Sam shook him off. "I just wanted to not be a burden. I want you to remember me and not be relieved that I'm finally gone."

Everything in Dean's world went cold and his breath caught for several long moments. This felt worse than when Sam had shot him at the Roosevelt Asylum. His baby brother thought he would be relieved **_if_** he died. "No. Sammy, no. I don't care how long I have to stay here, you're gonna be all right and I'm never gonna be _relieved_ if you don't make it." He spit the word out of his mouth like it was poison.

"You say that now." Sam said, and turned his face away from Dean. He knew he wouldn't make it if he tried to get up and walk away from Dean, but he could at least turn his head.

Dean grabbed his face as hard as he could, eliciting a wince of pain on his brother's face, and made him look at him. "Look, I'm gonna say that now and forever. Now, listen to me: I am never going to wish you were dead or that I didn't have to deal with you anymore. You're my brother, and I would gladly take your place if I could!" His jaw was clenched and it hit him then that he was hurting Sam. He hadn't meant to and he backed up a little. "Sorry Sammy."

Sam looked at him and nodded his head. He understood. Dean was ready to leave, to give Sam some space, knowing that he had hurt him again when he heard the quiet voice. "Dean."

Dean came back to the bed. Sammy had given up. He could see it in his eyes, in his words, and had seen it there for days now. Anything Dean did wouldn't make a difference. Sam was convinced that he was going to die, and it was Dean's job to make him smile again, to fight. That idea hadn't been the brightest, but he could do better.

He just stood there, waiting for Sam to talk. It took a few minutes, but he finally said, "I'm cold, Dean. Where did my quilt go?" Dean grabbed it, putting it over his little brother. He slipped back into the role of protective older brother, and Sam forgot that he was supposed to leave. Their dad had called Sammy his little shadow most of the time they were growing up, and he felt it now. They would be okay, had somehow worked it out.

Dean sat down in the seat that had become his, looking at his father with huge eyes. He was gripping onto Sam's hand with zeal, trying to hold onto him. He could hear his brother's breathing getting worse, and he didn't know what to do.

"What are we going to do?" John asked him and he looked at him incredulously. How was he suppose to know what to when his dad didn't even? "His dinner's going to be coming soon. After how sick he was from chemo this morning, I don't think he'll want anything they give him. He needs to eat so that he can keep up his strength. What do you think we should do?" His dad had clarified himself when he saw the look on Dean's face.

"Um, why don't we go get something? How about some...I don't know, maybe..." He was drawing a blank. Nothing would really be good from a fast food place.

"Subway. You can get him a salad or something." Their father suggested. Dean wondered why his dad got it when he didn't. His brother and father were always the ones that ate healthy stuff, though.

"Okay. I'll just..." Dean started by his dad cut him off.

"So, we'll be here when you get back." His dad gave him a stern, no-nonsense look and he folded.

"Fine. I'll be back." He told him and left the room, looking back at his baby brother.

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Hope you guys like the chapter. Please, as always, feel free to leave any constructive criticism or praise.

Kaewi- I've noticed that a lot of the "Supernatural" writers have been updating really fast. I think they know that people are sitting at the edge of their seats waiting. lol.


	15. John Makes a Phone Call

Here's the next installment. It's kinda short, but the next installment after this should be along shortly. Thank you all for your reviews.

Kaewi: Hey, sorry again for the misunderstanding. The "if" was Dean's point of view and him not giving up on his brother.

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Things were getting worse with Sammy; Dean could feel it. Sammy was losing ground faster than anyone could hold on. The disease may have taken a long time to make itself known, but now that they were treating him for it, it was taking over. They were starting the third week of chemo, and Sam was so weak. In the beginning, he and his baby brother had spent a lot of time talking, watching TV and playing games on the laptop. Now, he slept much of the time, too much, and he woke screaming in agony because his bones were hurting him. The "cure" had just been given to him half an hour ago. Dean had watched, gripping onto his brother's hand and becoming more angry with the doctor for causing Sammy pain. Sam was half-conscious now, rolled up as he usually was, and the quilt wasn't even keeping him warm enough. Shivers racked his body in an attempt to warm him.

"Hey, it's going to be all right." Dean promised him. He still couldn't shake the feeling that it was a lie, that he was going to lose his Sammy, but he fought hard to have hope. So, he reassured him. He needed to tell Sammy something, needed to make it okay for him as well as for himself. Their dad was standing on the other side of the bed, rubbing circles on Sam's back.

"Sam, you need to lie on your back." John tried to coax him, and although Dean knew the reasoning, he still felt a little angry at him for doing this. A small infection had been discovered in Sammy's lungs and the doctor had put him on medication in hopes of slowing down the spread of liquid in his lungs. He had tried not to scare either of the Winchester men but had told them that the infection, if allowed to develop, could form pneumonia. Dean knew that if Sammy got pneumonia, that they wouldn't be able to keep him here. They would lose him just like they lost their mother. Basically, he needed to stay on his back. In that sitting position, he would be allowed to breathe better and the fluid wouldn't build up.

Sammy looked up at John, but rolled over to be on his back. John's heart broke, but he knew he had to be authoritative. His son needed someone to tell him what to do right now. "Dean," He said to his oldest boy, calling him over away from the bed. "I'm going to go make some phone calls and get some stuff from the store. I'll be back, probably a couple of hours though."

"Dad! He just got the chemo. You know it's gonna get worse. Just stay here for a while. He needs you." Dean said, clenching his jaw while talking to his father.

"He has you here, son. Just stay with him, and I'll be back." John told him, and walked out of the door before Dean could even say anything. He needed to get away from the situation, to cool himself down so that he could stay in control of his emotions. He would keep his word, though; he would come back after making a quick phone call and going to get something for Sammy.

John Winchester left the hospital, and walked to his car that was parked in the parking garage a little bit away. Sitting in the front seat, he dialed a number and waited as it rang. He looked over the papers that had been strewn over the front seat, documents that gave him more of an insight to the thing that had killed Mary. Before Dean had called him, he was so close to finding this thing, so close to killing it, so that his boys could be reunited with him. This took top priority, though. It was more important to be there and try to save his living son than to hunt down something that had already taken his wife. This was the way she would have wanted it. He glanced at his ring; if she were here, she would be able to handle all this emotional stuff better. She had always been the one to kiss Dean's wounds, and to make him better just by making things seem magical. He couldn't do it, no matter how hard he tried. The person he had been trying to reach answered the phone.

"John, how are you?" The friendly voice of Missouri answered.

"We're..."

"Boy, you say you're fine, I'm gonna come find you and smack you." She said, warning him in the same tone she had spoken to his son in.

He chuckled a little, glad that something was business as usual. He sighed and prepared himself to tell her the truth. "It doesn't look good. Sam's worse, he's just...not fighting it, and I don't know what to do. I'm worried that if by some chance, some stroke of bad luck, he doesn't make it, that Dean will be devastated. I'll be devastated."

He wasn't the ex-marine anymore; he was the father. She knew that after Mary died, he had stopped being the father, choosing instead to protect his sons the best way he knew how. This was so far removed from what he was comfortable dealing with. "John, he'll be all right. You just have to fight for him if he's not at the moment. Don't give up on him."

"There's only so much that we can do. Right now, Sam's counting on Dean and I to do the fighting for him and I'm not sure that's what he needs."

"Everything will be fine, John. You'll see. Do you want me to come up there?" She would if that was what he thought was best, but she didn't want to overstep her boundaries in a relationship that was just starting to be mended.

"No, that's okay." He sighed deeply. "We're taking care of him."

"All right. Well, don't be a stranger now." She knew he had to get back to his son, and that he had other things he needed to do before he went back up there.

"I'll call you later, Missouri."

"Okay, call me if there's any change." He hung up the phone. Leafing through the papers once more, he almost had himself convinced that he would be more productive if he left and went after the thing that killed Mary. He started the engine up and pulled the car out of the parking space. He had things he needed to do. Maybe he couldn't be Mary, but he could give his son something that would comfort him.

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Hope you enjoy this chapter. Once again, feel free to leave me a review, either constructive criticism, praise, or a question.

Happy hunting!


	16. Kind Gesture and a Harsh Truth

Thanks for the reviews for this story. As promised, here is the next chapter today. Hope you enjoy it.

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John came back into the room a couple hours later. Dean stood by the window, looking down to the road, hand placed at the back of his head. John cleared his throat, announcing his presence. Dean turned around, and gave him a sad smile. "He started getting sick again. Later on, I have to go wash his quilt. He couldn't warn me fast enough for me to get the trash can for him. I don't know what we're going to do, dad." 

The desperation in Dean's voice sent chills down John's back. He had been successful at teaching Dean to hold it together under stressful situations, and he was starting to fall apart. Somebody had to keep an even keel, so he said, "We're going to take care of him until he gets better. There's not much that we can do except sit here and wait. He'll be all right, but it's not going to help him to get upset."

Dean started to say something, but Sam started to stir. "Dean." He called.

John went over to him first, opening the bag that he had been holding since he came in the room. He pulled out this stuffed acrylic black lab dog and gave it to Sammy. It was something that Mary would have given him as a child, something that he never got to have. John wanted him to have something that would comfort him in a way that his mother would have. Dean looked at him surprised as Sam held the toy and lightly laughed, giving him an almost mirror look. "This is, um, something like I would have given Jess, dad. I'm not a kid anymore." His voice was so weak, but nobody said anything about how weak it had gotten. He had laughed, though. It was music to Dean's ears.

"I walked around the store for over an hour looking for something. It just was something your mother would have given you." John admitted. Dean sighed. He had walked around for an hour, because he didn't know what to get Sammy. Did he really know him that little?

"Thanks, dad." Sam said quietly. The dog wasn't discarded. John situated the pillows and the substitute blankets around him, noting that Sammy looked very much like he was having trouble breathing.

"How are you feeling?" He asked him, and Sam tried to shrug, but couldn't pull it off.

"I'm fine, dad."

The two older Winchester men sat down in their seats and John turned on the TV. Dean had gone to get the laptop from the pile of their stuff on the other side of the room, and they played Grand Theft Auto for a while together. Sammy tired out really fast, though, and so Dean had been playing by himself for over an hour when he heard his brother's voice.

"Don't you wish that I could have swallowed some rock salt and not have let this in?" Sam started to weakly giggle. He knew it wasn't really funny, but he needed to laugh or he would cry. "Isn't that what salt's supposed to do? Keep things out."

Dean didn't see the humor, and Sammy, head back and laughing, made him sick to his stomach. His baby brother was delirious, drunk on his own sickness. He was getting worse, and Dean saw it. None of them would say it aloud, but they knew. There was so little time and they were all still too stubborn to talk about it. "I don't think that's how it works...but it would be cool."

"Why can't it, Dean?" Sammy said, and although he saw Dean choke back a sob with a harsh laugh, he continued. "Bring me some rock salt, Dean. I can take it and..."

"Sammy, you can't. It doesn't work that way. Rock salt would kill you; even if you were healthy it would make you sick." He tried to explain. This was killing him.

"Dean, just let me try it. It might help. It might make me better..." He knew that it was a lost cause, not only because Dean was set, but because it was all just a gesture. He would do anything to make this go away, to be better. This is what he had been trying to avoid since the day his doctor at Stanford had told him that he had Leukemia. It had always been a losing battle, though, and he couldn't turn it into a winning one now.

"Sam...you know that it won't work." Dean said, and then notice that Sammy had stopped trying to fight the point. He looked at their father for a moment, wanting the man for once to be able to say something that would be able to calm his baby brother. "Sam, come on, we'll fix it. We'll make you better. Remember, we're a hell of team."

"I don't feel good, Dean. You know as well as I do that this isn't ending well. I'm going to die and there's nothing you can do to stop it."

Dean felt his throat close up and the tears well up in his eyes, and he fought to get control, to not let Sam see him cry. "Don't give up like that. You're getting help, and you're half-way done with the chemo the doctor told you that you were getting. You'll be better when you're done with chemo, got it?" His voice was rough, and he knew it shook worse than when he'd called his dad in Lawrence.

"You're just tired, Sammy. Lay back and go back to sleep. We'll be here when you wake up." Their father's voice came from behind them, and Sam turned to face him. Sam latched onto both of their hands and went back to sleep. When Dean knew he was asleep, he left the room to go sit in the lobby area. After a brief momentary look back at Sammy, John followed him. There was nothing he could do for his baby right now, but he could help his older son.

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Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Feel free to give any kind of review, whether it be constructive criticism, praise, or question. I am, however, not going to say the fate of Sammy just yet.

I know there was a sentence that was almost an exact quote from the episode "Faith."


	17. Breakdown and Dangerous Visit

Here's the next chapter. I hope you like it. Thanks for all the reviews.

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John followed Dean to the section of chairs a few yards down in the lobby area. Dean was slumping forward, holding his head and sobbing. There were harsh, loud, gasping sobs that John had never heard coming from Dean. John hesitated, not knowing how to handle this Dean.

Dean was unaware of anything or anyone around him as he poured out the frustration, the anguish, and the desperation that had been building over the last few weeks, since he had brought Sammy into the emergency room. He struggled to get air into his lungs because he was so upset, and he wondered how his brother felt, breathing now. This made him more upset and he cried even harder. On the verge of hysterics and hyperventilation, he almost missed the hands that had been laid down around his arms. He looked up with dazed eyes at his father, standing there towering over him.

"Dean, things will work out, son. I talked to this woman Missouri, a friend of mine. She's a psychic and she told me that everything would be okay. So, you don't have to worry. All we need to do is take care of Sammy and fight this thing and everything will be all right." John tried to comfort Dean, but the younger man jerked forward and then out of his grasp, unwilling to accept the comfort. He looked at his dad and it looked like he got even angrier.

"Let me tell you a story, dad. Remember when I called you and told you that we were in Lawrence? Well, we went to go see Missouri. She lied to this man about his wife screwing around on him. We asked her why she lied and she told us that people don't come to her for the truth, that they come to feel better. Maybe that's why she told you that Sammy was going to be all right. This is not all right!" He spat the words at his father, angered by the fact that the eldest Winchester was so accepting of his son's condition. He had to know that some kind of miracle had to happen or they would lose him.

"Dean, things are bad right now, okay. But if you give up on your brother, then he will die. You will lose him. There's nothing that I can do or say that's going to have half the impact that you have on his life just by being you. He looks up to you, and your tears are going to kill him." John spat back, just as angry. The two men looked at each other, at a complete dead-lock. They were both convinced that they were right, but both of them knew that they had to work with the other.

"Say you are right. How is just my telling him that he's going to be all right going to make things any better? I already do that. I've been doing that since we came to the emergency room...and he keeps getting worse. It's not working, dad. Face it: Missouri was wrong!" He stubbornly refused to listen to his dad. He needed the older man to come up with something. He needed him to make everything better.

"Well, then don't trust Missouri, but trust that he does need your faith. He does need for you to be in his corner fighting for him, more than you'll ever know. Do you really want to know what I saw when I went to the college to go see how he was? I saw a broken man. I saw someone who needed their big brother to talk to. I don't know what else is going to help him, but I do know that he needs you in his corner and he does not need you out here, crying and feeling sorry for yourself. I'm going back to the room. Do whatever you want." He told Dean, and turned around to leave. Dean put his head down and lifted only his eyes, feeling very angry for a moment, but then followed his dad. He caught up with him by the door, and they could both see that Sammy was awake.

"Daddy?" Sam asked, whispering and clearly out of breath as Dean and John walked back in. He was so confused, and the simple fact that he'd called him "daddy" broke John's heart. His baby boy hadn't done that in years. He sat down in what was usually Dean's chair on the side of the bed closest to the door, and held his son's hand.

Dean heard his brother's voice and almost fled from the room again. It was too hard for him to see his shadow looking like this, sounding so broken. He crossed the room, accepting that he needed to be the strong one again, and stood on the other side of the bed, smoothing Sammy's hair back. Another little bit of his hair fell out, and Dean reminded himself that he needed to be careful to avoid his brother's hair. It wasn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but right now, the hair loss was just another physical sign that his brother was sick. He didn't need any reminders, and it seemed to only be happening when it was touched, so he'd avoid it and everything would be all right.

"I'm right here, Sammy. Me and Dean are right here." John said, and Dean looked up in shock, hearing his father's voice crack a little. His strong father had never cried, only when he thought he was alone and only about their mom. Did he think that Sammy was so bad off that he qualified to be in the same category as their mom?

"Where... did you go?" He whispered, sounding so lost and confused. "I woke up... and there was no one here... I don't want to... die alone. Please don't... leave me to die... alone." The impassioned speech was given between gasps for air.

Dean felt another little piece of his heart break off, but fought to keep composure. "Don't be such a wimp." He started to tease his brother, but stopped when he realized that Sammy was in a different place then them. They were already losing him. "Besides, you don't get to just die like that. You're gonna be here for a while. We're gonna get you through this and get you better and then you won't be calling dad 'daddy.' You guys will be at each other's throats and I'll get to play referee and it'll be business as usual. I know that it's tough right now, but we'll get past this."

Once again John saw his older son step up and take care of his baby boy, making things better for him. It was the guidance that he'd needed and he was glad that the boy's were so close. For right now, they would all be okay. He saw that Dean was rubbing Sammy's forehead, carefully avoiding the thinning hair. It hadn't fallen out, simply thinned.

Dean sat there rubbing his baby brother's head to calm him, and listening to the ghastly breathing. He knew that Sammy had an infection in his lungs and they had him on medications, but he shouldn't be breathing this badly. He kept whispering "I love you" even after his eyes drifted closed and he fell into a deep sleep. Hopefully, knowing that Dean loved him and needed him here would make Sammy fight, keep him with them. He sat down and grabbed Sammy's hand, rubbing little circles on his hand until he himself drifted off to sleep.

John watched over his two sleeping sons for a moment. It was only three in the afternoon, but it felt like the day had been going on forever. It was raining outside, melting the snow that had only fallen a couple of weeks ago, and that made the day seem all the more dreary. He leaned closer to Sammy listening to his breathing and shuddered to himself. It sounded like an idling engine and he could swear he heard wheezing. Perhaps the infection had gotten worse. His younger son was cold, and so he trusted Dean with watching him for a while so that he could go get another blanket from the nurse, reminding himself that he needed to wash the quilt that had been magic to his son as a child.

The figure watched as John left the room to go ask the nurses for another blanket. Gracefully, she went over to Sammy's bed, laying her hand on his chilled skin. She looked over at Dean, leaning over in the chair next to his bed, and thought about how hard he was going to take this. Her one dream had come true for the boys: they were closer than any other brothers could be. It would hurt him more than anything else ever would, including losing her. Mary knew though, that if they didn't get help for her baby right now that he would die. She could hear him struggling for each breath, and knew that he wasn't asleep but unconscious. Without a second thought, she went over to her older son and put her hands on his head, sending him a dream of what was to come.

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Well, there you go. The next chapter should be up sometime tonight. Hope you liked it. Please feel free to leave a review whether it be constructive criticism, praise, or a question. I will try to answer all questions.


	18. Letting Go

As promised, here is the next chapter. Hope you enjoy it. Remember that this is not the end of the story.

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It was a dream, or somewhere within the dream realm at least. Dean knew this, but it was so intense. He could feel his brother screaming for him, yelling "Help, Dean, help me!" That was impossible at best, though. The younger man hadn't so much as spoke at a normal level for weeks. He was much too weak to. Dean felt it, though, as broadly as if it were one of Sam's weirdo dreams. He saw as Sammy was ripped away from him, out of his grasp, screaming for him. He couldn't get him back, couldn't make things right. All he could do was watch as the air was stolen from his baby brother and he choked to death. Shaking himself to fight the dream realm, his eyes opened- to the sight of Sam struggling. Sam didn't make a sound, couldn't, but he was struggling for air. _'This can't be happening.'_ His baby brother had been just fine when he nodded off, a bit weaker than usual but fine. Telling him that he was loved, that they needed him here hadn't helped at all. The dream was coming true, his baby brother, his whole life, was dying before his eyes.

Mary stood back, angry that she had waited too long. She knew the life was leaving Sammy, and there wasn't anything she could do to make him stay. Her life had already been given for this little one's life.

"Sammy! Sammy!" Dean yelled at his brother, trying to jar him out of this. It wasn't a sight he ever wanted to see again. Sam was gasping, trying to get what little air he could.

Sam knew what was happening, could feel it himself. He felt the heaviness in his lungs, felt them closing up, hurting him as he died. Meeting Dean's eyes, he struggled to say the words that needed to be said. He couldn't die without saying them. "I'm... sorry, Dean. I... love you."

The words had been croaked out through gasps for breath, but Dean knew what they meant before the kid closed his eyes. "No, no, no, no, no...come on, Sammy. Don't do this! Come on, I love you!" He yelled through watery eyes. _'This can't be happening! This can't be happening!'_ He looked around frantically for their father, but he wasn't there. Sammy's vitals were going down. He could see it in the heart monitor and oximeter that were attached to his body. It didn't look good, and he knew he was panicking. He knew he should be doing something, but he couldn't leave Sammy. One moment- only one moment!- later, the machines started to make alarm sounds as his small body flatlined. This couldn't happen. He hadn't had enough time. It wasn't fair. He was too young. He hadn't even had a chance to live his life yet. '_I promise that if Sammy lives, I'll make sure he gets that apple pie life he's always wanted, just please let him live_.'

Doctors ran in there, led by Dr. Lambert, with alarming speed, pushing Dean up against the wall. Frozen in time, he stood there, watching in horror.

His father came back in with one of the nurses, his face clearly written with guilt. He had just went out there to get Sammy a blanket and this had happened. He knew that he should have done something, but it was too late now. His baby was dying. They were losing him and all they could do was stand and watch.

The nurse that had come in with John grabbed Dean by the arm and gently guided him toward the door, giving John a look to follow him, while he was shell-shocked, and Dean was shut out from knowing what happened to the only precious thing he had in his life. He wanted to find a chair to sit down in, but he fell to the ground. _'This can't be happening!'_

Mary was pleased. The doctors were in there now, and while Dean was scared, Sammy had a chance now. They could try to save him. He had a chance now.

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Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please feel free to review.

Happy hunting!


	19. What Else Can We Do?

Here is the next chapter. Thank you for all the reviews that you have given me. It just amazes me. Hope you like this one, no Mary and no Sammy, but good anyways.

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It had been only a few minutes since Dean and John had been exiled from the room where the youngest Winchester laid, but it felt like a million years. Dean knew that he was dangerously close to hyperventilating. John hadn't moved him from the ground, simply let him sit there huddled up and broken. He stood right over Dean, hand gripping onto his left shoulder. They needed to prepare themselves in case this didn't end well. Dean would need him a lot if they did lose the baby. For years, they had done everything for Sammy, had viewed him as their last connection to the woman they both loved. He made things seem less ominous, and now he was the cause of the darkest moment that either of them would ever have to face. Even seeing his wife, the only woman he had ever loved and who had looked past his rough exterior, pinned to the ceiling, bleeding, and on fire had been nothing compared to the anguish of seeing his baby boy laying there lifeless as doctors pounded on his chest with a defibrillater to try to restart his life. '_If he lives, I promise that I'll never take him for granted again. I won't leave them again. I promise I'll take care of them. Just please spare his life. Take me instead!_' 

Dean had no sense of time or anything that was going on around him. His baby brother had needed him, and he had slept through it. Sammy had yelled for him to help and he woke up too late. If he had woken up even a couple of minutes earlier, he could have gotten help for him. He could have made him fight, not let him say that he loved him and then leave. Dean's own breath was coming in rugged gasps and he knew he was losing the battle against hyperventilation. This was all his fault!

John looked down at his son, who had up until this point been sitting there quietly. Dean was now rocking back and forth on his legs and repeating "I'm so sorry, Sammy. Please don't die." It was so heartbreaking and once again John said a silent prayer to any god that had ever protected his family to please spare Sammy so that he wouldn't lose his whole family.

Once the rocking had eased, John knelt down on one knee on the floor and looked his son in the eye. He knew his other son would be all right for at least a little while, because most of the doctors had left and the two that were left were moving medical equipment that John could only guess were to assist breathing into the room. "Come on, Dean. Let's go sit in the lobby and wait for the doctor to come talk to us." He gently coaxed his oldest son. The soft quality to his voice was surprising, even to himself.

Dean looked up at him with huge eyes stained with tears. "It was a game! How could I play a game with him like that? It was quality time that I could have just spent it in the room making him fight. He would have been fighting and I would have gotten to spend some more time with him. Ohmigod, dad, he can't die. We can't let him die. Dad, I can't let him die. I shouldn't have gone to sleep. Ohmigod, I should have stayed up and watched him and kept telling him how much he was loved and needed and maybe this wouldn't have happened. Dad, he called for me! He cried out for my help, but I was asleep and I just kept sleeping. What if he dies, Dad? I could have just killed him!" He was hysterical, and it was so uncharacteristic that John pulled the mess of his son to his chest, unconsciously mimicking the way Dean had held Sammy in Lawrence.

"This is not your fault. You probably just had a vivid dream. There's no way it was even physically possible for Sammy to have been calling for you so loud that it would have woken you up. Even if it were true, we both made mistakes. I thought I heard him wheezing, but he was cold, so I let it go. I was out by the nurses station asking for another blanket when this happened. If I had taken the focus off his comfort and told them that he was wheezing this wouldn't have happened. So, if you want to blame yourself, then I'm to blame just as much." Dean sat back from him, took a shuddering breath, and begin crying once more. They both knew what the cold meant: Sammy's weakened body had been shutting down. As the vital organs were requiring more of the body heat to keep them going and the blood was going to the vital organs, the hands and arms and feet and legs were getting colder. Sammy's body had been shutting itself down and neither of them had done anything. A dark shadow fell over the two Winchester men and they looked up almost simultaneously.

"Would you gentlemen care to go talk down the hall?" Dr. Lambert asked them, motioning for them to follow him to the lobby. John lifted himself up and helped Dean up with one hand. Together, they walked down the hall to hear what was going on with Sammy.

"How's my son, doctor?" John asked him directly as they each sat.

"Right now, he's on a ventilator. The infection in his lungs developed into pneumonia and his lungs were filled with liquid. We've put a shunt in his chest to help drain out some of the liquid, and in a few days he should be all right. These are going to be hard days, though. His heart may not be able to handle the strain and give out. I'm going to discontinue the chemotherapy. The treatments are not working. The cancer is unaffected. Plus, frankly, his body is too weak to handle anymore of the treatments." The doctor told them, and while they should have been comforted by the fact that he was alive, Dean still feared that this wouldn't end well.

"What else can we do? I'm not just gonna let him die. What else can we do to stop the cancer?" Dean demanded. It made him so angry that his brother had been put through hell and it hadn't made a damn bit of difference.

"There is another treatment we can try: Bone marrow transplantation. This means that we need to find a donor. The best candidate for a donor would be a sibling, so Dean, are you willing to give this a try?" The doctor explained to them. '_Am I willing to give it a try! I would lay my very life down for him!_' Dean screamed in his head.

"Yes! I'll do whatever it takes." Dean told the man, none of his usual humor in his eyes.

"Okay, in order to start the process, we need to get a sample of your blood so that we can determine whether you are a match. We've already destroyed much of the cancer-producing bone marrow, so we will just need to give him medication to kill the rest of it off and then we'll replace the bone marrow with yours. This will be done by harvesting the bone marrow found in your spinal column." Dean almost laughed out of the irony. Just a couple weeks ago, he was saying how horrible a spinal tap would be, but he would do anything for his brother. He then turned to John. "Dean should be okay within twenty-four hours and moving around like nothing happened within three or four days. Sam, though, will be very susceptible to infection so you will both need to wear masks, caps, and gowns before entering his room for two to four weeks, maybe longer depending on how long the bone marrow takes to develop new white blood cells. Do you have any questions?"

"Yes. When do we start this process?" Dean asked, speaking before his father could say anything.

"As soon as possible. We have a sample of his bone marrow on file, but I will need a sample from both of you. In case Dean is not compatible, we need to have other options." Dean and John both nodded, and stood to their feet.

"Can we go in and sit with him now?" John asked the doctor.

"It might be best if you were to go home for a while. He won't know that you're even there, and I'm sure both of you could use the break." The doctor said. Although John knew that he was just trying to be caring, he clenched his jaw.

"Can we go in and sit with him?" He asked curtly. He and Dean didn't care if he knew they were there or not. They knew they were there, and that was all that mattered right now.

"Yes, of course. I'm going to come in the morning to take your bone marrow samples. Good luck, and I'll see you in the morning." The doctor said, befuddled but polite. He'd seen devoted families before, but none as close-knit as this one.

Together, the remaining member of the Winchester clan went to go care for their youngest. It would be a long night, but Sammy was worth it.

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Hope you liked this chapter. Please feel free to post any kind of review. Have a nice night. 

Oh, and...

AtticusFinchFan- I'm sorry about your grandma. I'm not gonna say any of the plethora of useless stuff that people say, but I hope that you are able to find someone who will find something to say.((((hugs)))))


	20. Holding On

Okay, so this chapter is short. I couldn't concentrate today. The next chapter will be longer, I promise. Hope you enjoy this chapter, though. Thank you for all the reviews.

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The sight that greeted the two Winchester men as they entered Sammy's room was heartbreaking. Sammy had a tube down his throat that was bringing oxygen to his lungs, and another tube going into his chest to help suction out the fluid in his lungs. The heart monitor was beeping, but Dean had to wonder if his baby brother's heart could handle this stress for much longer. He looked so pale and little under the heavy equipment that surrounded him.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Dean tried his best to ignore the hissing that came from the ventilator as the machine cycled oxygen and the knowledge that he would die if not attached to it. He was alive, his life had been spared, and they needed to focus on that.

"It's okay Sammy, everything will be okay." He comforted his baby brother, in hopes that on whatever plain of consciousness he was on, he would hear and be calmed. He refused to believe that Sammy was in a place right now that he couldn't reach him. No matter what, he had always been able to reach him. Even when he was in college, he knew he could always go there.

John sighed. Once again, he saw that Dean was much better at dealing with Sammy, and the sting of jealousy shot through him. "You know, he probably didn't even hear you."

"Dad, I gotta try. He's in there somewhere, and his brain is fine, so he heard me."

John nodded his head and went to sit down beside his son's bed. He put his hands together and put them over his mouth, leaning forward. The doctors had put the railings up and the way his oldest son was leaning over his baby and rubbing his forehead reminded him too much of the way he had done when Sammy was still in a crib. Every night, after both of the boy's had gone to sleep, he would go into Sammy's room to make sure that he was all right, still breathing, that the thing that stole Mary hadn't come back for his child. It was because of this that he eventually arranged it so that he and both of the boys could share a room.

Dean stood by his brother's bed, gently holding onto his little brother's hand. It was impossible to sit now because of the railings, so he stood there for hours. He was convinced that if he let go of his hand, then Sammy would lose contact with the world, and would leave them. '_Please, let him stay with us. He can't take another incident like today. Please, just let him get to this bone marrow thing okay._' Dean silently prayed.

John awoke in the morning and saw his oldest son hunched over, still standing next to Sammy's bed, sleeping. He pushed him back as gently as he could and then caught him in his arms and guided him into the chair. After leaving him in the chair, John went to go check his other son. Sammy's skin was cold still, but it was a lot warmer than it had been last night. His younger son would be all right.

A lab technician came into the room, looking at her chart. John could tell what she was because she had a cart full of needles and he had never seen her before. Over the last few weeks, he had gotten to know all the nurses that were on this floor. He reach over and nudged Dean, waking him up by telling him that she was here to take the blood sample.

Dean woke up quickly, and just as quickly got to his feet. He had gone to sleep. He had let go of his brother's hand and went to sleep. Fearing what could have happened, he went to Sammy's side and looked him over carefully. His mind felt like a marshmallows, but he shook it off. He needed to be strong.

Noticing the way Dean shook his head, John thought back over when the last time either of them had ate was. He heaved a heavy sigh. "Dean, why don't you go first?" He suggested.

Dean nodded and went to present his arm so that he could give blood. In his mind, he willed the blood to match Sammy's blood. Over the past few weeks, he had felt helpless, unable to do anything to help his baby brother. This would change things, make it so that he could give something to make Sammy better.

After both men had given blood samples, the lab technician left and the two men looked at each other. "I hope one of us ends up being a match." John told Dean.

"It has to. If this doesn't work..."

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Hope you liked the chapter. Please feel free to leave any kind of review.

By the way, "Four Brothers" is a good movie. It has the brother dynamic, but there are three Deans protecting the baby brother. The only thing: Don't watch it while working on anything else. I couldn't focus because everytime I wrote about Dean or Sam, I saw the two white guys from that movie. lol.


	21. Test Results

Hope you guys like this chapter. It's a bit longer than the last one. Thanks for the reviews from the last chapter.

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Four hours later, Dr. Lambert came into the room where the two Winchester men stood guard over Sam. They both looked haggard, although he had been told that the boy's father had gone to get food for himself and Dean. These men could use some good news.

Dean saw the doctor walk into the room, and was instantly on alert. Still gripping onto his baby brother's hand with one hand, he turned to face the doctor. This needed to be good news. He needed for this to be good news as much as Sammy did. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that he couldn't move on if he were to lose his Sammy.

"Would you like to go to the lobby or talk in here?" The doctor asked, not even sure why he was asking. These guys weren't going to leave the boy.

"Here. I'm not leaving him." Dean said, steeling his voice. Just in case this wouldn't work out, he needed to spend the rest of the time he had with Sam near Sam.

"Dean, you're a perfect match. It tested better than an identical twin would have been. As soon as he's a little more stable, we can start giving him the medication to kill off the rest of the cancer-causing bone marrow. We also need to get the operation scheduled. Dean, would you like to know the details of the procedure now or when we get closer to it?" The doctor asked.

Dean almost chuckled, but stopped himself, not wanting the doctor to think he was losing his mind. He really didn't want to know, just let them do it and not warn him. It was like when you give blood and the lab technician tells you that she's taking your blood right as she does it. You look over, and because you can see it, you feel the pain more. "Tell me later. I really don't need too much time to think about this."

"Okay, do you have any more questions for me?" The doctor asked.

"Yeah. How do you know when to take that thing out?" Dean asked, motioning toward the ventilator. He knew that it was helping Sammy to stay alive, but it freaked him out worse than Sammy's dreams. This thing just served as a reminder of how sick Sam really was.

"We'll monitor his breathing and the fluid in his lungs and when he's doing better, we'll test him off of it to see how he does. If he doesn't respond well to being off of it, we'll put it back on him and wait until his lungs get stronger. If he does well, we'll leave it out and start the process for the bone marrow transplant. Sound good?" The man told them. He could see the worry etched into their faces and reassured them the best way he could: with honest information. John would probably be able to see through him if he tried to step around anything.

"Thank you, doctor." John said, quietly excusing the man.

Dean felt like he could cry tears of joy, but kept them to himself. His brother would be okay. If they could get him well enough to have a bone marrow transplant, then his brother would be okay. He didn't feel so helpless anymore; his bone marrow was going to be used to save the one thing in his life that had ever been worth protecting.

John sighed in relief. As much as he wanted to be able to help somewhere, he knew that it was important that it be Dean who was able to do this. He had seen the guilt and helplessness, how close he had needed to be physically with Sammy to protect him, and knew that he needed this to help let go of some of those emotions. He came back over to the bed after escorting the doctor out, and laid a hand on Dean's shoulder. This was good news for all of them, but he still worried about before and directly after he received Dean's bone marrow. He was really weak right now, and still was not breathing on his own without the ventilator. Who knew how he would be after the transplant. All the doctor said was that they would need to wear a mask, caps, and gowns when they came into the room. They would probably have to wear gloves too, and he would have to guilt trip Dean by telling him that he could kill Sammy if he touched him. It was cruel, but Dean would think it was cruel to not be able to touch him, too.

Dean looked down at his little brother. There was hope now. He gently rubbed his forehead again and made a promise to give him a normal life again. They could nurse him back to health, and then they could settle down somewhere. He pictured Sammy settling down here, and a smile came to his face. Sammy did love the snow, ever since they were kids. He would run around whatever hotel room they were in and wake up him and dad, telling them that it had snowed. He always loved it in the colder regions that they went to, also. He loved to see the look of joy on little Sammy's face.

John sat down in his seat and started flipping through his journal, anxious to get back out on the road where he could continue to hunt for Mary's killer once again. Even with everything that had gone on, he still wasn't needed. Dean was taking the reins and he was inclined to let him. They could take care of themselves and each other, and he could focus solely on his cause. Dean looked so lost now, and it was the only thing that made him stay.

Dean glanced out the window for a moment, noticing that snow fell in the mid-afternoon grass. "Hey Sammy, it's snowing. Wake up, so you can see it." He tried, mimicking the younger Sammy subconsciously. After several moments with no response, he sighed. "Yeah, I didn't think that would wake you up. Had to try, though."

"Dean, he's not in a coma. He's sleeping because they have him drugged. Leave him alone." John said with his usual commanding tone. He was tired, and the fact that Dean was being that foolish grated at his already frayed nerves.

Dean sat down in his chair that he had pulled up closer to the bed, and laid his head down against the bars of the railing. After only pausing there for a moment, Dean felt the total exhaustion of sleeping in a chair for weeks wash over him. God, he wished he had a soft bed and one of those steam showers that had been in Oklahoma to soothe his aching muscles and provide a good rest that wasn't in an awkward position in an even more awkward place. Before he even realized it, the exhaustion washed over him and he succumbed to sleep.

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Well, I hope you liked it. Yay, Dean to the rescue! Please feel free to give any kind of review. There will be another chapter up by this time tomorrow.

A/N: There's something else that's good that I got from this story, too. I am an old-school hunt and peck person, and I wrote most of this chapter without ever looking at the keyboard. Woo-hoo!

Have a nice day. Happy hunting!


	22. Sammy Wakes Up

Good evening. Hope you like this chapter. Thank you for all of your reviews.

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It had been four days with the medications pumping through Sammy's system and hopefully having some effect on his lungs. Dean was more stressed than he had been in a long time. There was no way it should be taking this long for Sam's lungs to be getting better. He knew his brother was sick, but after so long, every moment felt like he wasn't going to get better. A couple of days ago, after waking up with a huge pole-shaped mark on the side of his face, he had convinced the doctor to take down the railing. Sammy wasn't going to fall out on his watch, and all it did was get in their way and make them feel more helpless. He could now lean in and put his head down by his brother's chest to sleep, silently listening to the heart that some stupid machine couldn't convince him was fine.

He wished there was some way that he could gage the breathing, the sounds in his brother's lungs like he did the steady heartbeat, but he hadn't quite figured it out. For now, he had to wait and depend on the doctor to tell them how Sam was faring. It was so frustrating and he had to control his anger when the doctor did come. Everyday, the man told them that Sammy's lungs were getting better, that the breath sounds were better and that the fluid seemed to be dissipating, yet here Sammy was, still under sedation, basically in a drug-induced coma.

Turning as he heard footsteps coming into the room, Dean saw the doctor come into the room and give them a big smile. Dean was out of his seat. Did this mean they were gonna take him off the ventilator?

"Well, I've looked over his results over the last twenty-four hours, and I'm going to try taking him off the ventilator. After I take him off, I'll be on this floor for a little bit talking with other patients. I'll be here at the hospital for the rest of the day, though, so if there's any problem just have me paged." He came over to the bed and fixed the machine itself. Then, he turned to John. "He stopped receiving sedation during the night because we knew he was going to be taken off the ventilator today. Will you help to hold him down so that if he does awaken during the extubation process, he doesn't hurt himself?"

John agreed with him and quickly took position over his son, holding his arms down. John knew why this was necessary, but Dean was angered by this simple gesture. What harm did they think someone with cancer, weakened already and just off five days intubated was going to do to them or to himself? There wasn't anything he could do. Again, Dean remembered another reason why at least one of them were there at all times. If anything tried to hurt Sam, he would not be able to defend himself. John looked at Dean, shooting him a look of reassurance. They were not going to hurt Sammy, and he would be all right.

When Dr Lambert had taken the tube out of Sammy's throat, he coughed for a few minutes, which woke him up. Dean gently patted him on the head. "It's all right, Sammy." He promised once more. Then, he looked at the doctor, about to demand an answer as to what was wrong with his brother, when the coughing stopped. "See, I told you everything would be okay."

Sam was looking for water. His throat felt like it had been deprived of water and he had been set out in the desert for days. He wanted to talk to Dean, to see what had happened, what was wrong, but he couldn't talk because of his throat. The last thing that he remembered was his mom standing over his bed and then going over to Dean. He remembered that he couldn't breathe and his mom had been crying. What had happened?

Dean realized that Sammy had been searching for water, and got the small plastic picture that had been in the room for water, filled it, and brought it to him. "Drink it slowly!" Dean warned him before he even had a chance to drink. He loved him and would do anything for him, but there were just some things he wouldn't do. Cleaning up vomit because Sammy felt like drinking the water too quickly was one of them, so he tried his best to control the intake.

"Dean, what happened?" The weak, tired voice of his little brother asked.

"You were really sick. The infection you had turned into pneumonia, and you almost..." Dean stopped. He had the image of strong big brother to maintain, and his voice breaking didn't help things. Sam needed him to be strong, and letting him know how scared he had been wasn't going to help him.

"Oh. I remember mom." He was gasping out words between breaths still, but it was nothing compared to before. The new information scared Dean more than he had already been. It had been so close. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw their dad startle from his conversation with the doctor and start coming towards them.

"How do you remember your mother, Sammy?" Their dad asked, and the sudden interest in Sam irritated Dean. Why was he so disinterested with seeing his son when he first woke up after they almost lost him but so interested when he mentioned their mom?

"She was here. The last I remember, she was here." Sam said.

John looked at Dean, finally becoming aware of what had happened, what had almost happened. The concern that had taken over Dean the last few days finally penetrated John's shell. Even with the tube down his youngest son's throat, it didn't hit him how close to losing him they had really come. He should not have seen Mary. Sure, he loved that this meant that she was around, that she was watching out for their babies, but he wasn't ready to let go of either of their babies. When his time came, he hoped that Mary would come and take them, but that the time wouldn't come for a long time.

He turned back around to the doctor. "What are we going to do now?"

"Well, we need to talk to Sam. He needs to give his consent to the procedure for us to move forward with this." He said and moved over to the side of the bed. "Sam, we need to talk. Can we do that?"

"Yes, sir." Sam answered, the exhaustion seeping back in.

"Sam, the chemotherapy isn't working like we hoped it would. Now, there's another option that we have. You can get a bone marrow transplant. I've discussed it with your dad and Dean and they agree this is the best option. I need your consent before we can move forward with this."

"Where would I get the transplant from?" He asked, not sure if this would even work out.

"Both Dean and your dad were tested for compatibility and Dean is a perfect match. He wants to go through with this."

"Okay. If this is what everybody thinks is best, then let's do this." He replied. The fight that he'd had when all this started seemed to have broken down into nothing. He would be okay, though, and the two other Winchester men would help build him back up when this was all over.

"Okay, well, I need to go get some papers for you to sign and then we can start medication to kill off the rest of the cancer-producing bone marrow, so that there will be a successful transplant. I'll be right back. Do you have any questions?" He told them.

"No. That's okay." Sam responded, feeling the tug of fatigue winning a silent battle to stay awake.

Dean looked at his brother. This was just more medications that could just make him worse. For now, though, he had his brother and they would be okay. He would be okay.

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Hope you liked this chapter. Please feel free to leave any kind of review.

doyoufeellikeyour falling down: My sister thinks I'm nuts too. She goes "Ohmigod" and rolls her eyes. It's a big sister thing. Smile.


	23. Doubts and Fears

Here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy. Thank you for all your reviews.

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Fear spread through Sam as he prepared for what was soon to come. When he signed the consent forms, he should have asked the doctor more questions. Right now, it was all big medical words that he could pretend had no bearing on him whatsoever, but in an hour, when the doctor was supposed to get here, it would become a reality. He was so weak, he didn't think that he would be able to fight them, but he wanted to. He wanted to tell them that he had changed his mind. This wasn't what he wanted. Yeah, he had an IV catheter already where they administered the chemotherapy that had already been taken out, but they said the words "long-term" here. He would have this _thing_ in his chest long-term. They had said words like rejection and infection and things that he would have to do for the rest of his life. He couldn't do this. Tremors worked through his body, and he fought the urge to be sick. He needed to get the hell out of here.

Dean watched his brother, noticing how close to hyperventilating he was. This had to stop, he had to calm down or he was going to get sicker. "Sammy-"

"Dean, is it too late?" Sam's voice sounded edgy, panicked, and it finally came to John's attention that something was wrong.

"Too late for what, Sammy?" Dean asked, keeping his voice calm and at a steady pace and level. If he got upset, it would only further upset his baby brother.

"It's Sam. I don't want that to happen. You're going to treat me with kid gloves forever if I go through with this. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to take it back. I don't care what happens, please don't make me do this Dean!" Sam was freaking out, and Dean struggled to grasp what he was talking about. He had a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach that he knew what Sam was talking about not having to do. They had a week to think things over, to know what was coming. It had been a week on the medication and now at the midnight hour Sam wanted to change his mind. They'd probably been given too much information because obviously it was enough to scare Sammy into not wanting to go through with this.

"What don't you want to do, Sam?" He knew now was not the time to fall back on the old nickname that had been established long before his brother had any say.

"I don't wanna do this. I don't want the transplant. There's just too much stuff that can go wrong. I want him to rip up the consent paper. I can't go through with this." His voice was flying, and Dean knew this was more serious than anything that they had to face today, and in the next few weeks. His baby brother was pretty much signing his own death certificate.

"Sam, you need to do this. They've already killed off your white blood cells. If you don't let me do this, you're going to die." He needed to stress what exactly was at stake here.

"I don't care, Dean. Please, just help me out of here. We can just go. Start looking at the newspapers and find us a place to go."

"Is that really what you want, son?" John asked, and Dean swore he was going to just let him. He glared at his father. They wouldn't get far. With how broken down his immune system was, he would be dead within a week. All he would need to do is to go into a grocery store. Hell, he might not even get that far. The hotels they stayed at would kill him. The seats in his Impala, they still had germs from the last time one of them had gotten sick. The life of a germ...he couldn't even think about it. They wouldn't even get through one hunt. What was dad thinking? He felt himself losing the ability to breathe.

"No! Sam, you'd be dead before the first hunt was over. We're not going to give up on you like this. You need to do this." His voice was quick and he knew maybe a bit too loud.

"Dean, I don't want to. Please don't make me." Sammy was going to start crying, and Dean saw it. He knew he shouldn't push, but they needed to do this. He needed to do this.

"Sam, please. I know it's scary, but you need to go through with this. You need to be okay. Please let us help you." Dean pleaded, lowering his voice but still feeling light-headed from a slight panic.

"Dean, I can't." He had a few tears running down his face, and Dean longed to reach out and wipe them away, but he knew he couldn't. He needed for Sam to realize that he needed to do this.

"I never knew you were that much of a coward. Why are you so scared, anyway? Afraid of the needles? Well, you need to grow up." He'd never been so harsh with Sammy before, but nothing else was working, so he figured tough love had to work.

"I just, it's all so overwhelming, Dean. I can't do it. I'm scared." The soft, little voice of Sammy broke his heart and he felt a bit of guilt go through him.

"Sam, we've been through way worse things before. Remember the devil's gates in Clifton? That was pretty bad; we almost lost dad that time." '_And we're gonna lose you this time if you don't let us help you, so you're making this scary for us too_.' "But we made it through. It worked out okay. We can make it work out this time. In a couple of months, maybe even less, you'll be up and we'll go on a hunt together if you want or we can find an apartment, get real jobs, just... what is so scary that you're willing to trade your life to escape the fear?"

"What if...what if the bone marrow is rejected? I don't want to be rejected by any part of you." Sam's voice was like a small child, and for a moment Dean thought that he too was thinking very much like a child as well.

He sighed heavily and looked Sam in the eyes. "I will never reject you. This is going to work, Sammy, even if I have to pull a Superman and make it work. And, even if the bone marrow is rejected, which would be your rejecting it, by the way, I will never reject you." He needed to add humor, because the situation was so dire, and it was getting worse.

"But what if..."

"It'll work, Sammy. Just calm down, relax. I'll take care of everything." Dean instructed him, finally feeling that the moment had passed that his shadow knew that he would take care of everything. He had always been able to calm him down, to take the lead and he thought this time would be no different.

"Dean, I don't wanna do it."

"That's just too bad, Sam. I didn't want to spend four years without you. I didn't wanna hear you bitch for the last few months that we should look for dad, then we should stop following his orders. I didn't want to wake up to you screaming every night after a nightmare. Life is full of things that you don't want to do, but you have to do them anyway. You're going to do this, because for once you're going to listen to me." He was frustrated, and he knew even as the words came out of his mouth that he should not be saying them. Looking at Sam's look of defeat and their dad's look of pride right now, he felt it even more. He had brought his already hurting and injured brother down a notch. He felt like the scum of the earth. The next words that came out of Sammy's mouth were not the words he wanted to hear.

"Okay, Dean. Whatever you want." They needed him fighting, not broken.

"Sam, I need you to do this for you. I need you to understand that I will be here for you to support you through all of this. But, you need to do this and fight with us, okay?" He had lowered the volume in his voice as he leaned over and got close to Sam.

"I'm just scared. Help me." Sam said, looking more lost than he ever had, even when this first started.

"I'm gonna help you, through everything. Can you do this for all of us?"

"Yeah, just make it less scary, okay?"

Dean chuckled. 'Oh yeah, that's gonna be easy.' "How 'bout I try and we deal with the hard stuff together?"

Sam nodded, locking eyes and hands with Dean and then looked out the window, still feeling anxious.

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Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please feel free to give any form of review.

65 hours and 41 minutes until "Scarecrow."

http/www.supernatural.tv/gallery/displayimage.php?album59&pos0


	24. The Morning Of

Here's the next chapter. Not very long (lol), and I hope you like it. Thank you for all of you reviews.

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Dean watched over his little brother. Today, things were going to be really stressful. Today they were going to have the surgery. The early morning rays of light came through the window and sunlight landed on Sammy, yet he didn't wake up. Glancing at his watch to gauge how much time they had, he noticed that it was half past seven and smiled a little. Normally, his brother would be up and ready to go, but now the sunlight didn't even disturb his slumber. He brushed back the hair that still hadn't completely fallen out and looked at his brother more closely. The extended period that he had been sick had left him looking haggard, skinny. Maybe the next gig could be in Florida or California, someplace sunny and warm so he could get his tan back. Or he could make something up at Stanford, hack into the little guy's e-mail and send messages to everyone in the "friend" file saying he would be there. He could leave it up to him to tell them what had happened, but he could start the ball rolling. It couldn't be that hard to figure out a password for someone almost as predictable as the tides. His brother shifted, either in his sleep or as a part of waking up and Dean stepped back a little. It was far enough to not wake him up if he was waking, and close enough to help if he was needed.

Sam felt the anxiety well up in him before he even opened his eyes. It was like going to take a really important test and he hadn't studied for them. His brother was standing right there; he had become so accustomed to him that he could literally feel his presence. It had been cute a few weeks ago, but now it was just annoying. He didn't have the energy to fight him either. "You know, Dean, I'm still going to be here if you sit down in your chair...or turn down the heat in here." There was a bright light and he knew if he opened his eyes, it would become a blinding light. For a moment, he thought maybe Dean really wasn't there, that he was just imagining, but then the light was gone and he felt himself become much cooler.

Dean heard the grumble come forth from his brother, but more importantly heard him complain about the heat. For one moment, he thought Sammy might have a fever, but he looked at the sun and how it was directly beating down on him and went to close the blinds. "How does that feel, Sammy? You still hot?"

"No Dean, thank you." He sounded so sick and Dean wanted them to hurry and up and do this. He didn't want another chick-flick like they'd had the other morning, and he wanted to see his brother better. More than anything, he wanted this all to be over. That would solve both of the problems.

"That's good. Hey, Sam. It's about seven forty-five. They're going to come in a couple of hours. What do you fee- think about this all?" Dean said, clearing his throat as his almost mistake became almost known.

Sam didn't notice, though. The anxiety was building up in him, and he felt scared. Something bad was going to happen. "Hey, Dean, do you remember how I knew what was going to happen with that Jenny lady and her kids in Lawrence?"

"Yeah," Dean was edging around this, not quite sure where this was all coming from.

"Dean, I have a feeling that something bad's going to happen." His voice was barely louder than a whisper and rattling, but it made Dean want to laugh. Sammy was wrong. He knew that Sammy was wrong. They had been so used to bad things happening lately that Sam just expected for bad things to happen. Nothing was really even wrong this time, but Sammy was so freaked that he expected something bad to happen.

"Okay, so did you have a dream, see something? What exactly should we be looking for?" He asked, not meaning for the laughter to be in his voice, but not being able to hold it back. In no way did he want Sammy thinking that he was making fun of him.

"Samuel, this has to stop. You're stressing out yourself and your brother. Nothing is wrong and you need to quit trying to make something wrong." Their father's gruff voice echoed through the room. They were both silent for a moment, and Sammy seemed to shut down at the words of his father. Dean spun around, fully ready to yell at the man. The only time that he had been a force for anything lately was to yell at Sam when he was already down and it was starting to piss him off. The look on his dad's face stopped him, though. He was just as tired as they were, just as worn out and worried, and he carried them to some degree. Their dad had always been short with them when he was stressed out about something, and Dean didn't know why this was any different. Stress was the thing that had allowed the two Winchester men to fight and to alienate Sam for four years, though and he had to stop this.

"Sam, are you actually having the dreams or visions?" Dean asked, looking back at his brother. He would always take priority.

"No...but I know something bad's going to happen." He said, looking back at his hands, at the IV as though he wanted to rip it out, and Dean wondered if he would be tied down by the end of the day.

"Listen, a lot of bad stuff has happened lately, and so you're just expecting something to happen. You were worried about the catheter, and that worked itself out fine. I'm here and Dad's here. We're not going to let anything bad happen to you, okay? Look, here." Dean calmly told him this, and then took the protection necklace from his neck and put it around his neck. "You can wear my necklace and nothing bad will happen, okay?"

Sam nodded his head. "What time is it?"

"It's about five minutes after the last time you asked." Dean said, chuckling a little at his brother's impatience. "Don't make it sound like you're going to your execution. Besides, they're putting something in you. I'm the one that's going to be in pain. They're taking something out of me, and I have to walk to around after."

"Little violins are playing all around the world, just for you, Dean." Their dad said, quietly but Dean still heard it and gave him a really dirty look.

"Why don't we find something to watch. "Good Morning America" should be on." Dean said, omitting the fact that they would be well on their way to an operating room once it was over. '_Let's give Sammy a few minutes to feel secure before he has to go do this._'

Sam and Dean sat there watching the morning show and talking about light things, little things that were on the show. He knew he shouldn't be making Sam stay up so long, that he should be saving his energy for the long day ahead, but he cherished these lucid times, and it wasn't as though Sam were fighting him on it. His head was up against the pillow, and he looked like he wouldn't be able to hold it up himself to save his life, but he was talking and that's what mattered. '_Nothing bad is going to happen. We already had bad happen, and there's some kind of quota that can't be exceeded_.'

John was working things out with the doctor as his boys watched television. He needed to know what was going to happen with everything. Both of his boys were going in there, and while he had yelled at Sammy, told him not to worry, he was scared. He could deal with any kind of evil thing out there, because he knew what to expect, but he hadn't been here before. He had never been through this, and all he knew was that his baby was hurting, was dying and that their only solution right now was to take bone marrow out of Dean and put it into Sammy.

"I assure Mr Winchester, this is a safe procedure. All we have to do is take Dean into the operating room, take some of the bone marrow from his hip, and he'll be done. He will be given an anesthetic. I'm going to follow what you told me about his pain tolerance and give him a general anesthetic. It could be done with a local, but we're going to accommodate his comfort. He will be given a blood transfusion to replace the blood. Then, he will placed in a recovery room for a few hours. He'll have a large bandage over his hips that will need to stay on for twenty-four hours, but he will be fine. I'm not saying he's not going to hurt for a while, but we're giving him pain medication to take for a week." Dr Lambert told him, clearly explaining the process to him.

"What about Sam?" John asked. He hated to think about it being worse for him, but knew realistically that he had to be worried.

The doctor looked at him, and sighed. "Well, you know about the long-term risks associated with this procedure, but today should run smoothly. As soon as we get Dean into recovery, we'll start on Sam. The procedure is basically the same, except we'll be giving him the bone marrow. The only thing that will be tricky is managing the right amount of anesthetic due to how weak his body is. Don't worry, the anesthesiologist is very good. There should be no complications. Your sons are in good hands."

John knew that the doctor was very confident of himself and of the rest of the staff, but he didn't feel the tightness in his chest lessen. "Okay, let's get this done with." He said with a sigh, noticing that Dean was already being asked to go with a nurse. He looked at his son and wished him well with a glance, before following the doctor in to take care of his younger son. This had to work out.

Dean saw the look that his dad shot him, and knew that they were in good hands. His dad would be there for him and for Sammy. The kid had been asleep when he walked out of the room with a nurse. After over an hour of fighting the sleep, he had fallen asleep, and now he would wake up and not see him. The next time he would see him, would be when they got out of the recovery and even then, he was supposed to wear a mask, gown, and gloves- what would have to look as comforting as a spacesuit to his brother.

John saw them wake up his youngest, explain what they were going to do and then they asked him to leave so that they could prep him. And John Winchester was momentarily shut out of both of his son's worlds.

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Hope you enjoyed. Please feel free to give any kind of review that you would like.

Daquiri- I love long reviews. I find they help me know where I am and what I need to work on as a writer. It's almost necessary. Thanks for the compliment on my grammer. I had a really good creative writing teacher in high school, and he taught us to reread and speak what we wrote, see if we would understand if we were being told the story. I hate MarySue's or OFC's too. Emily was not meant to be one. Also, with Sam's reactions to things: Fear, pain, and helplessness tend to change how a person reacts a little bit. I'm glad that you noticed these things, and I hope that you will continue to read and review. Hope chemistry goes well. :)


	25. Waiting

Here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy. Thank you for all the reviews that people have been giving.

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Dean woke up with a start. Everything seemed to be so bright and fuzzy and he swore he knew what cotton candy felt like now. He was flat on his back, staring at a white ceiling and he wondered for a moment where he was. As quick as the thought had crossed his mind, he knew where he was. Everything came back to him. "Sammy?" He questioned, and struggled to sit up, looking around him. His brother should be around here somewhere. As he sat all the way up, he noticed his baby brother laying so still in the bed next to him.

Sammy looked okay, but he was still so motionless. Gathering up all the strength that he had saved up for an entire lifetime, Dean pulled the heart monitor off himself and pushed himself to his feet. It hurt worse than almost anything that he'd ever felt, except when that demon had thrown him a good hundred feet when he was thirteen. He'd been stoic for Sammy that time, just as he was now. He slowly made his way over to the bed his brother lay in, all the while holding onto whatever would help to hold his weight off his hips. It felt like someone was stabbing needles into his hips for all of the ten steps that it took to get to the other bed. "Sammy?" He called again, and again their was no response.

He lifted himself into the bed and laid down next to his brother in a strictly brotherly way and put his arm around him. He may not be able to protect him from anything that was happening within his body, but he could lay here and offer his comfort to Sammy and his life to anything that would try to take Sammy. As he lay there holding onto his brother, he heard the soft heartbeat under his head as well as from the beeping of the heart monitor that Sammy was wearing. His little brother was cold, and he brought the blanket up further around him to try to keep him warm. "You'll be okay, Sammy." He once again reassured Sam.

It had only been a few seconds when a nurse ran into the room, alarmed by the solid beeping and solid line that the heart monitor Dean had been wearing was now displaying. For a moment, he felt guilty, seeing the concern on the plump black woman's face and cursed himself for not thinking that she would check on him as well as Sammy. "Sorry." He told her.

"You should be in your bed." The friendly nurse said, but not with the demanding tone he would have expected.

"I had to make sure he was okay, had to be near him." He quickly read the nametag on the brightly colored Tweety Bird uniform this woman had on. "Please Lana, let me stay with him. Come on. I promise I'll let him sleep." He said, trying to pull off his usual charm. This woman was older, could have kids of her own, she had to understand.

The woman nodded her head, and huffed. "For a little while. Then, you have to go back to your own bed." The woman seemed less than happy about it, but she understood and so let it happen.

John Winchester wasn't a patient man, never had been and so waiting to hear word on his two sons was killing him. He had paced the exact spot on the floor so many times that the nurse, who wasn't even wearing her name tag,sitting at her station had stopped reading her magazine to watch him. This only served to aggravate him when he noticed her sitting there, ogling him. The nurses back on the oncology unit were brilliant compared to this woman, and he fought the urge to say something to her that he would regret. "Miss, have you heard anything about my son's, their names are Samuel and Dean Winchester?" He figured if she was going to watch him, she may as well answer his question. He'd only asked her every ten minutes for the last hour.

"Sir, I know who your son's are. You've told me six times. The doctor will speak to you when there's news. Until then, why don't you go down to the cafeteria and get something to eat. I'm sure your hungry what with all the exercise you've been getting." He sentences were clipped with a certain sarcasm to them that John didn't like.

"Listen lady, I'm sure they don't pay you to sit..." John started, but let the anger go when he spotted Sammy's doctor walking down the hall toward him.

"How are my sons?" John asked, not sparing any time for pleasantries. He needed to know now, and he had long since passed his patient point because of the nurse.

"Why don't we go sit down and talk, Mr Winchester?" He said, motioning toward the chair where John had spent only a small time actually sitting.

He could have sworn he heard the nurse scoff and mutter "good luck" in a voice that was supposed to be quiet. '_She does not matter in the grand scheme of things_.'

He and the doctor sat down in the hard chairs, facing each other. "Both of your sons are fine. They're in recovery right now. Dean should be released from there in a couple of hours. He will be given pain medication and sent home. I suggest that you bring him home and stay there for a couple days. Sam is very weak and any form of infection could kill him." '_So could something else if we leave him alone_' John thought in his head, but let the man continue. "Sam will be fine; he's also in recovery. He'll probably be kept there or in ICU overnight. We had a difficult time keeping him with us through the anesthesia, but he will be okay."

John was alarmed. What had happened in that operating theater? "What do you mean you had a hard time keeping him with us?" He demanded. He needed to know.

"When we put him under the anesthesia, his vital signs started to fall. We were able to keep them stable, but we had to keep watching his vital signs for any fluctuations. He is fine though, now that he's not under the sedation anymore." His voice was soft, low, and clear, meant to be comforting, but John struggled to process the information. His son's vitals were getting out of control. "You can wait in the recovery waiting room for Dean to be released. He'll be in pain from his hips for a few days, maybe a week, but he will be fine."

John nodded his head. "Thank you, doctor."

"You're welcome. I have to go take care of some things, so I'll talk to you later." The doctor said by way of excusing himself. He gave one more final glare to the nurse, and walked down the hall to where he had been shown the recovery waiting room earlier.

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Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please feel free to submit any kind of review.

The three nurses that have been introduced so far- two of them are after characters from other shows, as in I saw them in my mind's eye. They aren't nurses on the other shows, but they have that attitude. Emily is modeled after Emily (what Quartermaine/Cassadine?) on "General Hospital", and Lana is the receptionist on "Strong Medicine." The other woman in this chapter is not specifically modeled after anyone, but there are some nurses that I have come across that oooh! shudders

Daquiri- I do the same thing with studying, such a procrastinator.


	26. More Waiting

Here's the next chapter. I hope you enjoy it. It's kind of short, but... Thank you for all the reviews you've given me. I'm glad to see so many people like my writing.

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The two elder Winchester men were waiting outside in the lobby area that had become so familiar to them. They had basically been in these chairs in some kind of morbid holding pattern for three days now. Dr Lambert and the nurses on this floor had told them both several times to leave. The doctor had appealed to John's sense of paternal protection, telling him that Dean needed to go "home" to get some rest. John had been willing to layer salt around Sammy's bed and take his older son somewhere to rest, but Dean had fought both him and the doctor. He knew he needed the rest, but knew that Sammy needed his big brother close and that was top priority, so he stayed. They had convinced the doctor and nurses to let them in there a few times to see the youngest of their tiny family, all the while wearing full-protective gear.

Dean shook his head again to clear the fatigued feeling out of it, and looked at his watch again. It was just past three in the afternoon, and he'd been up for over twenty-four hours now. He had laid down, but his eyes had never closed.

Emily was going to be coming into work pretty soon, and he would get a chance to see his brother once his dad had gone to sleep. She was being lenient with him, after seeing him that day when he and Sammy had been playing a game. His dad was still awake though, and he silently wished him to sleep. She wouldn't even risk both of them going in to see Sam, and if his dad wasn't asleep, she wouldn't even allow him in.

The few times that he had been in to see him, Sammy had seemed exhausted and disoriented, and it looked like he was getting weaker, not better. The doctor had told them that it would take at least two weeks for the transplant to have any effect, but there should have been some difference by now. They had him on oxygen, not a ventilator at this point, but a hose that ran underneath his nose. He looked like skin and bone and while the hair had stopped falling out, it was still thin. It was hard to tell if he even knew they were there at times.

Sammy had to feel like they were abandoning him. He was all alone in that room, and they weren't there. On some level, they had told him why and he would know why, but... what if he didn't fully comprehend? He seemed to be in some kind of a haze, and Dean felt like they were losing him.

Looking at the TV screen across the room, Sam spaced out on the images of Dr Phil and his guests. He wasn't really watching, but for some reason it reminded him of Dean. Oh yeah, Oprah. Dean had probably said it as a joke, but it stuck with him. In these moments when he had to be without his big brother, he clung to this like a beacon of comfort. His dad had washed the quilt one day while he had been out. He had that, but it just wasn't enough. It didn't matter right now how at risk he was of getting an infection, they could even come and sit in the surgical uniforms that they'd been forced to wear, but he missed his brother and dad. He wanted them here, not in the lobby where he knew they had camped out. Even now, he could hear his father snoring faintly in the distance. He chuckled a little. Dean needed to go get one of those Breathe Easy things to put over his nose and keep him from waking the dead. That was all they needed right now. He shuddered at the thought of how many people had died just on this floor alone. It would be a lot of salting and torching and then there was the whole confidentiality thing. He had a good chuckle to himself.

He needed to see his brother before he became one of them, though. Searching for the cord that would allow him to call the nurse, he began to panic. Something wasn't right. He pressed the button, and waited for the nurse to come. Nurse Emily, the one that was good to Dean, came through the door only couple minutes later. Dean followed closely behind her, a worried look on his face. Seeing his brother, the feeling of unease left him.

"What's wrong?" Dean asked, as soon as he neared Sam's bed, holding the mask over his face. He looked so funny in that outfit.

"I was going to ask them to let you see me." He whispered. If Emily or one of the other nurses had spoken through the speaker, he had no idea how she would have heard him.

"Well, I'm here. I can't stay too long, but I'm here." Dean told him. He looked away from his brother. Sam frowned; he couldn't stand to look at him. Maybe Dean regretted giving a part of himself to him.

Dean looked away out of guilt and out of a need to not see his brother like this. He was supposed to be better, not look like an extra from some B grade zombie movie. This wasn't right. He felt a hand grab his own, and he looked back down.

"I'm sorry." Sammy said to him, and his heart broke.

"Don't say that. You have no reason to be sorry." He told him, shrugging him off in his best tough guy voice. Together they sat, ignoring everything else, but the quiet moment between each other.

"Why did you climb in bed with me?" Sam asked him.

"What? I never..."

"Yeah, you did. I felt you there with me when we first did the transplant." Sam said, trying his best to convince his brother, and looking like he was stressing himself out.

Dean soothed his brother by gently rubbing his forehead. "You remember that, huh? Yeah, I was trying to make sure you were still here. I wanted to be there for you. Plus, you know how I do alone."

Sammy smiled. "I knew that."

"Then why'd you make me say it? You know I hate chick flick moments."

Sammy smirked and looked up at him. "Just wanted to see if you'd say it." He knew Dean was resisting the urge to smack him.

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Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Review with any kind of review that you would like.

That episode was good tonight. Lots of emotion.

Conner: It started out as a "turnabout" of "Faith", but I decided to change it a bit. Do you think that I should change the summary? I'm glad you liked the Missouri part.

Kaewi: It's an established idea that Mary died for Sam within the show. She died over his crib and the reason she went into the room was to protect him. Had she not been there, he would have died. It had nothing to do with the present situation. Also, when I said she couldn't stop him from dying, I was taking from another "fact" that the dead cannot interfere with the living, even as far as to stop them from dying.


	27. Alone In the Night

This chapter was kinda short, but the next will be longer. Promise. There are about four more chapters after this one. I hope you enjoy. Thank you for all of your reviews.

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It had been two weeks, and the older Winchester men had finally been allowed back into Sam's room without the mask, gown, and gloves. Sam had, of course, gaining a little more strength, told them that he was going to leave if they didn't let his family in. Dean smirked when he heard this. '_That's my boy._' Dr Lambert had told them that he was going to allow them to do this, because Sam's white blood cell count was beginning to get higher. It all meant that the transplant seemed to be working, and that Sam was getting to be better.

Dean walked cautiously into the room, careful to not wake his sleeping brother. While he had made progress, his baby brother was still incredibly weak. He had moved beyond the stage where they would kill him if they had any germs, but it was only a small improvement. At least he looked better than a few days after the transplant. It didn't kill him to look at his brother anymore.

As quiet as Dean had tried to be, when he sat down in his chair, Sam shook his head to clear it, and then looked over at Dean. "Hey, they listened." He chuckled for a little.

"Well, we had to work the old Winchester magic, but you know..." Dean said, shrugging his shoulders. He could almost let himself relax, convincing himself that Sammy was going to be fine.

"So all the nurses think you're a dork?"

"No, of course not." He said, his usual confidence showing through. It was a nice thing for Sam to see. Especially since every time he had come into the room since and before the transplant, he had probably filled his quota for chick-flick moments for the next year at least.

Sam laid his head back on the pillow, taking in a deep breath. Dean moved the chair closer to the bed under the guise of being able to hear the TV better with the speaker right next to the bed. Sam knew otherwise, and he went to sleep with the comfort of knowing that his brother was right with him.

The next time Sammy woke up, he was so cold and he pulled the quilt closer to himself to try to stay warm. His head pounded, and his throat stung, yet he struggled to get up. There was pain everywhere, even in his eyelids, and he called out "Dean?"

Dean stood from his chair and held onto his brother's hand. He was shaking like he was cold but there was sweat coming off of him. "I got you, Sammy." He made the promise, while searching for fever. His heart rate shot up, and he looked around for their dad. He wasn't there.

Looking around, he found the call button for the nurse, and pressed it a few times. The night nurse came into the room quickly, sensing the urgency.

"He's got a fever!" Dean yelled at her. "I thought he was getting better, what the hell's going on with him? He was fine this afternoon."

"Sir, calm down. He's going to be fine. We need to get the big blanket off of him and then I'll take his temperature. He'll be fine." She tried to reassure him.

He watched as this nurse called the other nurse and they worked to get his baby brother's fever down. It felt like this had happened before and he said a silent prayer to whatever god was listening to take care of his brother. He stood there, holding Sammy's hand and humming "The Memory Remains" by Metallica quietly, not even sure if Sam heard him.

The doctor came into the room and brought Sammy's head toward him. He shined a flashlight in his eyes and Sammy winced. "Dean!" He cried out again, as the on-call doctor continued to look him over.

"It's okay Sammy, I'm here. Everything's okay. He just wants to see what's wrong." He pleaded with him. '_Just be okay_.' The doctor motioned for Dean to follow him, and he squeezed the hand he was holding onto and then went to follow the doctor.

"What's wrong with him?" He demanded.

"It looks like it's the flu. His lungs sound congested, but not enough to be an infection. He should be all right, but I'll have the nurses keep a closer eye on him tonight." The doctor said.

"Okay, thanks." Dean said and then went to go sit back down with Sammy. He couldn't believe his dad still wasn't there.

(Space)

John looked over his documents and tried to call Missouri. She would want to know that he was on the move. His son's were doing just fine without him, and he wouldn't be needed for much longer. It was time to go.

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Hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to leave any kind of review.


	28. John Leaves

Here's the next chapter. Hope you like it. Thanks for all the reviews.

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Standing outside of the hospital, John Winchester checked his voicemail again. It had been three days of Sammy being sick, of having to just stand there useless as Dean cared for him. He was frustrated to be here when **_someone_** might actually need him. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that neither of the boys needed him. They needed each other, but not him. Dean had taken over the role of father to Sammy so beautifully and Sammy needed him when he was sick. Over the last couple of months, he had stood around uselessly and he was starting to become restless. There was a message for him on his phone now. He listened as an old friend stumbled over his words, asking for help with something that was in his house. John knew he should stay with the boys, see this out, but he needed to leave eventually. If he sat around here waiting for Sam to get better, he might be here for a long time, time that the thing that killed Mary would need to escape him . . . if he could even find it now. 

He sighed, turning off his phone. David could wait for a little while. Deciding to give it a while longer, he made his way from his car to the hospital doors. If his boys really needed him, he could always stay. He took the elevator up, enjoying the relative quiet. As soon as he got back up on the floor, he had a feeling something wasn't quite right. A feeling of anxiety developed in his stomach as he neared his son's room.

Dean sat next to his brother, trying to get him to drink a Pepsi that he'd gotten for him. The doctor had told them that if Sammy didn't start keeping food and water down that he would be put on a feeding tube for a little while. Sam had just been nauseous. He had told him that he got dizzy every time he moved his head. _"Well, stop moving your head then." Dean joked._ He had been joking with him until he realized that it was serious. Earlier in the day, Dean had asked their father to go get Sam some Pepsi. It wouldn't be much as far as nutrition went, but he might be more willing to drink something that he actually liked. The thought had crossed his mind to have him go get a beer- '_and get one for me while you're at it_' - but he figured the doctor and even the nurses wouldn't appreciate that. With how much weight Sammy had lost, it would be hard to hide with even one drink. So, he sat there now, trying to get Sammy to drink the thing. And to eat the peanut m&m's he'd gotten, too. Sam had drunk and ate a little, but he kept telling Dean he didn't feel good so he couldn't eat.

"Come on, Sammy. You don't feel good because you won't eat. I know you're dizzy and it makes you feel sick, but eat just a little. For me?" He knew he shouldn't be using the ploy for something that wasn't an emergency, but something in his mind justified that this was an emergency.

Sam tried to eat what Dean had given him, and as Dean watched, he figured he could always just tell the doctor that at least his brother had eaten something. It didn't matter what it was. "Thank you, Sam."

Dean looked around at their dad, just now noticing that he was there after several minutes. He had already had time to take off his coat and sit in the chair at the foot of the bed. Dean was puzzled as to why he would just sit there and let him handle things, but let it go. Maybe he didn't need the oldest Winchester manhandling Sammy into doing something anyway. "What's up?" Dean asked him, a sudden feeling of unrest regarding John coming over him.

"Nothing. I just went to go check my voicemail and call Missouri. I've been telling her about how Sammy's doing." He figured he may as well tell his son's the truth, seeing as he was going to disappoint them again. Neither had noticed his presence in the room, and he once again felt jealousy toward Dean. Sam was doing much better. The transplant had obviously been successful so far. They didn't need him.

"Okay." Dean said, and looked back at his baby brother, taking the finished bag of m&m's and the almost empty bottle of Pepsi from the sliding table separating him from Sam. He was happy that it had all been finished. He needed to go tell them that Sam had eaten. See, he would eat, just not hospital food. Dean couldn't blame him. It could wait though until Sammy was sleeping. "Thanks for doing that, Sam."

"I still don't feel good." Sam was complaining, and to Dean he sounded exactly like a little kid would. The flu had made his throat sore and scratchy and so he sounded like a frog. Usually, the whining would have gotten on his nerves, but now, it just served as a reason to smile. Not only was he actually eating and talking a little bit above a whisper, but he was being a whiny bitch, which meant that he was on the road to recovery.

"I know, but it'll get better, I promise." He told him, reassuring him as much as he could. "Why don't you try to get some rest, Sammy?"

Sam closed his eyes, reaching out to grab the hand that had become so comforting and tried to go to sleep. In twenty minutes or so when he knew Sammy was sleeping by the soft snores that came from being congested, Dean got up from his seat next to the bed. He looked at his dad, and the two of them just stared for about a minute. He knew something was off, but didn't question it. "Dad, can you stay here for a couple minutes? I'm going to go talk to the nurses, tell them he ate something."

"Sure, Dean." He told him, and then watched as he left. Right now would be the only time he had for saying good-bye to his youngest. He didn't want to deal with Dean when he found out what was going on.

He stepped over to the bed, looking down at his baby and swept his hand over his hair. "I love you, Sammy. Don't forget that." Kissing his forehead in a gesture he was sure the kid would never remember, he stood up and grabbed his jacket.

John was grabbing his jacket as he stood over Sammy saying his good-byes to the sleeping boy when Dean came back. He looked at his dad and knew immediately that something was off, really off. If he didn't know any better, he could have sworn that he was leaving. "Dad?"

"Dean. I was hoping to do this without any emotions, but I'm leaving. I've been called for a hunt in Maine, and since you boys can't do it, I'm going." He said it so concisely, giving no room for comment.

"But you'll be back?" Dean looked perplexed. Why would he leave them now, when Sammy was struggling and still sick? They needed him, and he was just taking off...again.

"No, Dean. I'll contact you later. I've got to go." He said stepping around him. Dean clenched his hands into fists and drew a deep breath, finally understanding a little of where Sam was coming from in his feelings toward their father.

"He needs you." He fought the urge to deck the man, not knowing how else to contain the kind of anger he was feeling.

"He doesn't need me. You do everything for him, Dean. The two of you will be fine." He started to walk down the hallway, deciding that since Dean seemed to be following him, the stairs would be quicker.

"Dad, he needs you. And if he doesn't need you, hell dad, I need you!"

They were already down two flights of stairs and John stopped for a moment to look at Dean. "You're leaving him alone. What happens if something gets to him?" He tried to play on his oldest son's guilt, the guilt that he himself had instilled in him long before the young man was old enough to know how to deal with it. It was usually necessary for survival, but right now, he was hoping that it would stop Dean's theatrics.

"I layered salt under and around his bed a long time ago, dad. Cut the crap." He nearly yelled as they entered the lobby at ground level. He followed closely behind his dad, all the while restraining the urge to hurt the man who had raised them.

"Dean..."

"Dad! What the fuck? You're just gonna leave us again? Just like that? And if something happens? If he takes a turn...then what? Are you even gonna come back and be with me while I bury him?" They were outside and it was late in the afternoon, around seven. The sun had already gone down and there weren't many people near this area of the hospital. For this, Dean was grateful. Tears started to gather in his eyes, and he could hear the watery quality of his own voice. It was hard to breathe, his heart was pounding in his chest, and he started to get light-headed. He was so frustrated, but more than that, he had said the dreaded words aloud. Sammy needed them both here. He **would** get better, but he needed them both here.

"Dean, I have to do this." He stated again in the firm voice that had always made Dean listen in the past, while continuing to walk to the parking garage. Once he got to his car, he looked back. Dean was fuming.

"Dad, if you leave right now, don't bother coming back. Leave Sammy and me alone. This is it." He threatened, for once knowing that it was a threat that he could live by. They had spent all that time looking for the man, Sammy knew about his illness and so was worrying about that and where their dad was, and now he was abandoning them again. Hell, thinking back on it, John Winchester always knew what was going on with Sam while he was at college. He had probably known all along what was wrong with Sam and he didn't do anything. Dean was starting to shake with anger.

"I'm sorry, Dean." John said before getting in the car. Dean started punching the roof of the car, as John started the engine. The car started backing up, and Dean took a step back, eyes wide. He was really leaving. As the car drove away, Dean started kicking and punching anything within reach.

"You sonofabitch!" He yelled at the car that had already left. Calming down a little bit, he reminded himself that Sam was upstairs alone, vulnerable. Despite him wanting to go after their dad, Dean trudged back towards his brother's room. His baby brother needed him more than he needed to be angry at their father. What was he going to tell him when he woke up and their dad was gone?

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Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please feel free to review with anything that you want. 

There are a couple words in here, and if it's a problem, either review the problem or send me a message and I'll go edit it.

Also, everyone thought that John had left in the last chapter, but he wouldn't leave them in that big of a lurch. He would at least say "good-bye."


	29. Hard Discussion

Here's the next chapter. I hope you guys like it. It's full of sap, but it's good. Thanks once again for all of the reviews.

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Dean had been sitting there for a few hours now, watching over his baby brother. Their dad was probably at least in the middle part of northern Indiana or southern Michigan by now, and Sammy would want to know what had happened when he woke up. He didn't know what to say, didn't know what had made him leave either. He sighed and leaned forward once again, putting his hands together and over his mouth. His head was down, but he was keeping a close eye on his brother.

Awareness came down on Sam, and he opened his eyes a little bit. Seeing his brother's head down in his hands and how upset he seemed to be, he shut his eyes again, pretending to be asleep. It broke him up that his brother could be this worried about him. The very least that he could do was to give him some time and space that his being asleep probably provided him.

"It changes, you know?" Dean told his little brother, through a sigh.

Sam's eyes opened and he looked at his brother, who was now looking intently at him. "What changes?"

"The heart monitor. When you're sleeping, your heart rate is lower. I can always tell when you're awake or waking up...or dreaming."

Sam chuckled a little. "Like my own personal lie detector?"

"Something like that." Dean was getting frustrated at their dad again, and he was going to take it out on Sam in a minute. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay. I don't feel quite as dizzy." He lied, knowing it was what Dean wanted to hear.

"Well, that's good." He got up and felt Sam's forehead for fever. He was so happy that Sam had gotten better enough to where he didn't swat his hand away now. It was good to stop worrying a little. He was going to be okay.

"Where did dad go?" Sam asked, noticing that his father was nowhere in sight. He figured he probably went to check his voicemail again or something.

Dean's face scrunched up. He was hoping that he would have more time until he had to do this. Taking a few deep breaths, he tried to gather his thoughts around what he would tell Sam. "Dean?" Sam's voice penetrated the silence. He could hear the uncertainty in it. Obviously the silence was speaking louder than any words ever could.

"Sam, dad left." He told him and then looked away quickly. The admission pulled at his heart strings more than it had when it was happening. Having to say the words out loud somehow made them more real. Something was more important than them, again.

"What? But he's gonna be back right?" Sam asked, trying to figure out what was so big about now that hadn't been about any other time that their dad had gone out for air during this whole ordeal.

"Sam, someone called him. He had to go on a hunt in Maine." The best way to do this was to be blunt. It may not be the way Sam wanted, but it was the way that it needed to be.

"But, he's gonna be back when he's done?" Sam asked. He was angry that his dad would do this, but figured that there needed to be some excuse. It had to be pretty big for him to just take off.

There was a part of him that wanted to lie to his brother, to allow him to believe that he was coming back. Sammy needed to know the truth though, and he was getting sick of lying to Sam where their dad was concerned. "No, Sam. He's not."

Sam turned over on his side and away from Dean. Dean stood over the bed, and gently laid his hand on Sam's back in a comforting gesture. "Dean, just leave me alone for a little bit." Sam's voice cut into him a little bit, but he left him alone.

"Okay, well I'll be here." Dean needed for Sam to know that someone was here probably as much as Sam needed to know that someone was still here. Together, they sat in silence for almost an hour.

Dean took the cord that had the remote to it, and turned on the TV, figuring he could find some comedy movie for them to watch. He flipped through the channels and found a show that seemed kind of cool on the History channel. This could be interesting, and might make Sammy laugh if he left it here for a while.

Sam tried his best to stay in the somber mood that he had adapted, although it was hard to fight not to laugh a little as he heard a woman's voice saying that she felt some presence here and then some man telling what had happened in the 'manor.' "God, you can't escape that, can you?" Sam chuckled finally, not being able to keep it to himself anymore.

"Well, you know me, Sammy." Dean said, in a voice that was so normal for him that it comforted Sam.

Sam sighed and looked at Dean. "Still think dad loves us?" He demanded. There was some need to be told that he would.

"You know, Sam. He just has a different way of doing things than you do. Like, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now." He explained to Sam, hoping that there was some way he could actually explain this away. "He loves us; he just doesn't say it."

Sam nodded, getting what Dean was trying to do. "Is there something better to watch?"

Dean chuckled, and turned the channel. Things would be okay, even if he was really mad right now. Sam was doing much better now, and if he did get sick again, or if this thing didn't go away, he could always call their dad back. He hadn't answered when Dean asked if he would come back, but he knew his dad would. There was no way he couldn't.

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Hope you guys liked this chapter. Please feel free to give any kind of review.

Connor: I don't actually have a Beta reader. I have a spellcheck, but that's it. It's amazing the mistakes you can catch by just rereading what you have written. Well, that and paying attention in the various English classes they give you in high school and the ones you take in college.

Brody113: Did you mean that I did a bad job of portaying the character of Deanor that you didn't like the Dean-torture? I wasn't angry when I wrote it.


	30. Getting Better

Here's the next chapter. I hope you guys like it. Thank you all for the reviews.

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The air was much clearer and easier to breathe these days. It had been a good month since John Winchester had left his sons, and although Dean had gone through several bouts of doubting the man and himself, he managed to hold it together. He would be there if they needed him Dean knew, but so far, everything was working out. Sam had gotten better after his bout with the flu, and the doctor seemed optimistic about the bone marrow engrafting with Sammy's body. As he became stronger, and the white blood cells in his body increased, he was getting sick less often. Even when he did get sick, he was able to fight it. It didn't have a chance to progress and so went away faster. It was as if everything had started to go back to normal, and Sam became restless to get out of there. His hair was growing back, but it was still baby fine enough for Dean to have something to tease him about. He was glad that they had gotten to this point where it was okay to tease and the fear he had for the life of his little brother had diminished. Sure, there were still little things, like the fact that he got nauseous once in a while and had headaches and backaches, but Dr. Lambert told them that it was normal and would go away. Still there was still a nagging voice at the back of his head that said that things were somehow going to make a drastic turn and they would still lose him, but it lessened some when they took him off the oxygen and later when he pulled himself out of bed and walked to the bathroom. These were the major strides that they had originally hoped that the chemo would have caused. It made Dean happy that he was able to give Sammy a part of himself that would make him better, even though it would have been a lot less scary if they had known this was an option before doing the chemo. Even now, there could have been a chance that the bone marrow was rejected, and Dean thanked his lucky stars that Sammy would be all right.

It pained Dean, although he knew that their dad loved them in some way, that he wasn't still there. Dean went downstairs, right outside the parking garage, at least twice a day after Sam started becoming stronger to check his voicemail. Dad had yet to even try to call them, and it angered Dean. He hadn't meant it when he told him not to bother them, to just leave them alone, not really. At the time, he had, but John was still their dad and he still owed it to him to be loyal to him.

Sam was doing much better and was ready to leave. The weather was beginning to look really nice, and he was getting anxious to go out there and be a part of the world again. The doctor had been made aware of where they lived- Dean had said Kansas and the insurance that he still had from Stanford said that he lived in California- and so he said the main reason that Sam had to remain here was to make sure that he got the proper care. Sam guessed the man knew that Dean would have them running around the country the second he was well enough to go. He looked at the sun coming down on the growing grass and thought back to the snow. He had been so sure that he was going to die, and he had been ready for it.

"Dean." He said, and it wasn't lost on either of them that his voice was loud enough to be an actual voice. After all, this was one of things that had freaked his brother out the most.

"What's up?" Dean asked, lowering the Car & Driver magazine that he had gotten from out in the lobby, placing his hand between the pages.

"How much longer did he say?" Sam wanted to know, and Dean stifled down a scoff. Everyday for the last two weeks, he had answered the question, but he guessed that if he were in the same situation, he would be anxious too.

"He wants to keep you here until they take the tube out, and until you don't feel nauseous, and until you stop getting on my nerves, because he doesn't want to have to release you and then find out you were murdered and all of our efforts meant nothing." He said, keeping his voice steady and low. If he gave his brother the impression that he was becoming angry and annoyed, maybe he would stop asking.

"Funny Dean." Sam muttered and laid back against the bed. "I'm bored. This is driving me nuts."

"I know, Sam. Trust me, I know. But just a little while longer, and we'll both be sprung." Dean muttered, almost under his breath. Now that Sam was better, or getting better, the tough big brother exterior could come back up.

"Dean..." Sam started and Dean heard the apprehension in his voice.

"What's up?"

"When we leave here, what are we going to do?" Sam asked, but it wasn't the hopeful 'can we stay somewhere and live normal lives' attitude that he normally took.

Dean thought back to all the times when he promised that he would give Sam a normal life if he just got through this. He intended to keep that promise for as long as Sam wanted it. "The same thing we do every night, Pinky." He mocked, but then became serious. "What do you want to do?"

"I want to go back on the hunt." Sam said, surprising Dean.

"What? I thought you wanted to settle down and be Joe Normal."

"I did; but Dean, this has made me realize how precious life is. If we aren't helping these people, they're going to die. I know what it feels like to be helpless, to know that you're going to die and there's nothing that you can do about it. I don't want anybody else to feel that way." Sam was so impassioned now that it made Dean scoff.

"Yeah, and then in a couple of months, you'll be complaining again." Dean joked with him. "But if that's what you want now, we can do that."

"It is." Sam insisted. Dean had never been more happy; his brother was doing better, and he was devoted to the hunt now. Everything would work out for them.

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Hope you guys liked the chapter. Please feel free give any kind of review that you would like. The next chapter is going to be the last chapter, but I already have my next story planned out. 


	31. The End

This is the last chapter of the story. I hope you like it. Thanks for reading my story and reviewing it. I was shocked by how many people reviewed. On with the story...

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It had been eight days since they had spoken about their plans and Sam knew he was ready to leave. They had taken the catheter out the day before and he was doing fine. He was crawling the walls, but he knew he was fine. He knew that the doctor was supposed to come today, and he couldn't wait. 

"Dean, I can't take this anymore." He told his brother, wanting to be out in the bright sunshine that he could see through the window, not in here.

"Just a little while longer, Sammy." Dean said, clearly amused. He had to admit that they had run out of things to do with their time, and everything was mildly anti-climatic now that Sam was better. His life had been filled with action, and this whole standstill thing wasn't working for him, either.

There was a knock on the door and both Sam and Dean turned in that direction. Dr. Lambert was standing in the door.

"Hello, Sam. Dean." He greeted. They both knew that today was the day Sam got to leave the hospital, but every second seemed like forever. They were both so sick of being here.

"Hi. So, do I get to get out of here today?" Sam asked, ready to sign an AMA sheet if he wasn't.

"Yes, son. You are in remission right now, but there are a few precautions that you need. You will be susceptible to infections and illness more than usual for at least six months. It's important that if you show any signs of an infection to get to a doctor right away. The bone marrow is engrafting right now, but that could change at any time. Also, the cancer cells could build up again. In six months, we'll test your bone marrow again to make sure that everything is okay. If you do get sick, avoid aspirin and nasal decongestants. If you have aches and pains, use Tylenol. However, it can mask a fever, so be very careful when using it. If you take an antacid, it needs to be taken two hours before or after you take your medications. It's better to take an antacid with calcium instead of aluminum if at all possible, and liquid would be better as well. It's best to avoid alcohol and smoking. In general, it's better to avoid smoking and alcohol, but it's especially important while you are on medication. I'm giving you potassium, magnesium, Clonapin for nausea, and Cyclosporin which is an immunosupressive. Take the Clonapin before you eat as it's needed. You have to take the Cyclosporin for the next six months. We've had you on it here since the transplant. I'm going to give you six refills. They should take you until the next appointment. Do you have any questions?" Dr. Lambert gave the information while the boys listened to him.

Sam had been listening intently to the doctor and so didn't miss it when he asked if they had any questions. "No, no, I understand."

"Well, if any questions should come up, I'm giving you my office number. I've given Dean instructions concerning your activities, and he can belay those to you."

'_In the form of bossing me around. Gee, thanks, doc._' "Okay." Sam said.

"There will be a woman from accounting coming to see you, and then a nurse will help you to your car." The doctor smirked. "I believe you know Emily."

Dean started to chuckle. "Yes, I know Emily." The doctor gave Dean the prescriptions and left the room. Dean stood there, shaking his head. "Yeah, I know Emily."

"You're shameless, you know that?" Sam asked him.

"What? I liked her. That's it." Dean defended himself.

"Mm-hmm. I'm sure."

The woman from accounting walked into the room, and Sam was ready to tell her to send the bill to the post office box that they still had in Lawrence. He knew it would take a long time to pay this off, even with the insurance that he had. She had a smile on her face. "Okay, if you'll just sign this, I'll put it in your record that your bill has been paid in whole." She said, handing him the paper to sign. Sam and Dean both looked at her for a moment. It was nice, but why weren't they being charged anything?

Dean was the first to get his wits about him. "How's that?" He asked.

"It says here that the bill was paid in full by a John Winchester." She said, looking back over the paper and then handing it back to Sam. "I don't handle the money. I just talk to the patients."

"Thanks. Would you happen to know when it was paid?" Dean was frantic, wondering how their dad knew how much it would cost them, or when he was there.

"Dean. It says April 12." Sam told him, finally seeing where she was getting the information on the paper. He couldn't get over it. That meant that he had come back and they were sleeping or that he didn't bother to come see them. He didn't get why he would do this. Signing the paper, he gave it back to the woman.

"Thank you." She said before turning and leaving the room.

The two Winchester boys sat quietly, neither wanting to break from their thoughts. This wasn't right. Emily came into the room with a wheelchair for Sam to ride down in and stood while Dean gathered his and Sam's stuff, including the quilt. "Here, I can carry something for you." She told Dean.

"No, I got it. I'll just hook it to the wheelchair." There was a small suitcase for his stuff, Sam's backpack, the laptop, and the quilt. Not too bad.

Dean wheeled Sam out of the hospital, thinking about how pale his brother was. The time spent in the hospital had not been kind on Sam's complexion. This was the first direct sunlight that Sammy had gotten in over three and a half months. He had spent New Years in the hospital, and they had been so worried because he was so sick, that they missed it. He had also been too sick on Valentine's Day, which was a blessing because Jess wasn't in his mind. It couldn't have been a more beautiful day either. The sun was shining and the warm air touched them with a gentleness that only spring could produce. The trees were beginning to grow buds again, and the grass had that freshly mowed smell. Nature was coming to life.

Sam noticed that things were starting to be reborn. It was the middle of April, and it had that whole feeling to it. It seemed kind of odd that it had been winter, everything had died, when he was sick, but now that he was getting better, things were coming back to life. It seemed as though his life was being mimicked by the weather. He looked up at Dean, wondering if he saw the same thing. Dean was looking out and enjoying the weather, too.

Dean finally got to the car. It was a little bit away from the building, but closer than the parking garage. He had been told that he couldn't park his car in the emergency lane, and he wasn't going to let some nurse do this. "Come on, lazy." He jokingly told his brother, and then helped him to stand up so that he could get in the car. Sam was still weak, although he had gained a lot of muscle back in the last month. After getting Sam situated and putting the stuff in the backseat, Dean walked over to his side of the Impala and got in. They sat in silence for most of the ride to the hotel they would be staying in.

"Dean?" Sam's voice broke the comfortable silence that had settled over both of them in the car.

"What Sam?" Dean asked, still looking intently at the road in front of him. Even though he knew what was coming, he fought to keep them from having a chick flick moment.

"Why do you think Dad did that? Why did he bail on us and then come back to pay for my hospital bill?" Sam was in his usual brooding mood, and Dean fought to keep the smile off his face. It was nice to see that things were back to normal, even if he was still upset with their dad. He knew that he needed to smooth things over, but inside he fumed. How dare the man think he could just leave them for over a month, and then pay for things and everything would be back to normal between them.

"I don't know, Sam. He was always better at physically fixing things than dealing with the emotional stuff. That could also be one of the reasons we get along better than you and him." Dean sighed. He didn't want to analyze anybody, much less their father. He knew this would lead to one of those touchy-feely conversations that Sammy loved so much. He also knew that no matter how much he protested in his head, he would go along with Sam without too much of a fight.

"Yeah, but... why would he come back?" Sam looked at him and Dean could tell that Sam wanted a better answer.

Dean sighed and cracked his neck, rolling his head on his shoulders out of frustration. "That was something he could take care of. He knew we honestly don't have any money, and he did from somewhere." He reminded himself that he would need to find a poker game before they left Milwaukee because they only had enough for one night in a hotel. They were completely broke despite John paying for the hospital bill. Dean knew he still had the game, but he hadn't played it in several months, since Sammy had gotten sick. He had been too scar- worried to leave his baby brother's side, thinking that while he was gone, Sam could have gotten worse. He would have had the guilt in his head that his brother could have been all right if he hadn't left to go play poker.

"Okay, but Dean, where did he get the money to pay for it even?" Sam asked. He would have thought that their dad wouldn't have left them in a lurch like that, but he did leave. If he could leave his sons while one of them was sick, then he could pay for the hospital bill with a fraudulent credit card.

"I don't know, Sam. He probably had it left over from the house insurance or from mom's life insurance, or he could have had it hidden away somewhere." He wanted to get out of this chick flick moment, so he made a joke that might make Sam drop it. "Hell, that could have been your college fund."

Sam didn't laugh. He merely crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. "Funny, Dean."

"Seriously, Sammy. He wouldn't do that to you. He may not have stayed with you the whole time, but there is no way he would have done that to you." Dean was somewhere between angry and ready to laugh. Sam was over-thinking everything.

"Okay, but what if..." Sam started again, but dean cut him off, loud laughter resonating through the car.

"Ohmigod, Sammy. Let it go. Everything is going to be fine. I promise." Dean said, sure now which emotion he was going to let shine through. His brother was so tense, had been expecting the worse to happen for so long, and it was just hard to change now. It really wasn't his fault for being so wound up; they just needed some time away from the hospital and everything would be fine.

"Fine. Jerk." Sam said, looking over at him.

"Fine. Bitch." Dean told him, and spotted the hotel that they had been staying at before all this happened. The woman there was nice when they had first came there, when he checked out, and had even asked how Sam was after he had told her about things that were going on when he would go there when his dad told him he needed a break. He figured it was a good place, and he could maybe score with her. That would be nice. After all, Sam was fine. He was able to move around without too much trouble now, and he would be able to yell if it came down to it.

Dean went in to pay the woman, telling her that he would come back later to talk, and came back to park the car. He parked the car as close to their room as he could, remembering to be careful because it had been a long time since Sam had walked any far distance and he still wasn't up to par. He got out of the car, and started unloading the stuff that they would need. He wasn't watching Sam closely, and so he was shocked enough to drop his bags when he glanced over at him. Sam had grabbed his bag out of the backseat and was struggling to carry the thing into their room. "Sam!" He yelled.

"What?" Sam asked annoyed, as he turned around.

"Let me carry your things. Just go in there and lay down." Dean told him, handing him the key to the room.

"I can take care of myself, Dean."

"I know you can. Just, let me do this now, okay?" Dean said, humoring him.

"Fine. I'm carrying my laptop, though." Sam announced, and grabbed the smaller of the two bags he had been carrying.

"Fine. I'm carrying my laptop." Dean mocked his brother's retreating form.

Sam went into the room, and started to set up computer. They hadn't looked at it in a few days, instead choosing to veg out to television and the game system that Dean had talked Nurse Emily into getting for them. Sam shook his head and chuckled to himself. It had been on the pediatric wing of the floor, but Sam still wondered if the woman knew just how much she had been manipulated by his brother. He reached into one of the pockets to retrieve a part for the computer, and stopped as his hand touched what felt like paper. He pulled the paper out, and looked at it for a moment. It was a yellow sheet of legal paper that had several bills wrapped in it. He momentarily discarded the paper so that he could count the money. "Dean!" He yelled as he counted out a thousand dollars. Not waiting for his brother to come back in the room, he picked the note back up.

_Sammy and Dean,_

_I'm sorry that I left. I know it was the wrong thing to do. It's very intimidating to be near the two of you. My intention to raise you to protect each other has obviously worked. I am so proud that the two of you can share that. _

_Before Dean called me, I was very close to finding the thing that killed your mother. It's a demon. I knew that I could do more by finding the thing than I could by staying there. Dean had everything under control, and I have faith in you boys to pull yourselves through anything._

_I know that you boys are probably broke. Sam, I looked into your insurance situation and found out about the student insurance. I also found out how much the bill would be. I have some money set aside in a bank account in Kansas, and I needed to do something._

_I was here tonight as you guys slept. Dean, I'm rather disappointed that you would allow movement in the room and not wake up. Anyway, I wanted to give you guys money so that you can take care of yourself for a while. Dean, that woman that you've been flirting with at the Knickerbocker on the Lake Hotel told me that a week was $250 dollars. You can either let your brother rest there or find something to hunt. Either way, I wanted you to have that option._

_This isn't good-bye. I know that you told me not to talk to you again, but I'm always here for you. You have my cell phone number._

_Dad_

Sam sat down on the nearest bed, coming centimeters from missing it and falling flat on his ass on the floor. Dean was right in front of him, and had apparently been trying to get his attention for a couple of minutes. "Who's the note from Sammy?" Dean asked, grabbing it from him.

"Dad. He also left us a thousand dollars." Sam was dumbfounded. He had been wrong.

The boys stared at each other for a moment before Dean started to read the letter. It was clear, unlike the Yoda crap he usually wrote. After he was done reading, Dean looked at Sam. "What do you want to do?"

"I want to stay here for the night and then find something to hunt."

"Sounds like a plan." Dean said. He knew that things were going to work out. Sure, Sam wasn't completely healthy yet, but he was getting there. He was in remission and as soon as they got him back in the swing of things, he would be okay.

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Hoped you liked the story. Thanks for sticking with me through it. This is the first multi-chapter story that I have seen through to the end. 

Kaewi: You're awesome, and yeah, at the bottom of this is a summery of the next story.

Big thanks to my regular reviewers: NateandJake, KatieMalfoy19, Supercellchaser, PlutoBaby494, Brody113, MistroandDaquiri, Long-Live Christopher, GuestTypePerson, doyoufeellikeyourfallingdown, aniki19, Mystery927, Ktlane, Connor, Animalia-Fear

Also, thanks: Cassi, JPfan, whimseyrhodes, tp96, supernaturalfan0718, Phoebe, dancing-through-starz, Aciel, Sensue, Adara, Dawn N, andSpuffyshipper

Thank you to the people who only reviewed once, too. It meant a lot that you spent a moment of your time reviewing my story.

The summery for the next story: Sam and Dean travel to Savannah, Georgia to investigate a haunting in a dorm building, but will they fall prey to it themselves?

Okay, this is the next big story that I am going to do. I'm going to write from the challenges on PL Wynter's forum.


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